The trailer features a sampling of the one hundred and one family-friendly, addictive games that kids, adults, racing fans, sports nuts, old school arcade gamers, action addicts, casual gamers, and fans of brain-teasing puzzles can enjoy!

Most video game travel kits are filled with a bunch of knick-knacks that most gamers neither want nor use. Penguin United has eliminated the junky frills and launched a travel kit for Nintendo DSi that is equipped with ...

If the gamers can't come to Italy, bring Italy to the gamers. That seems to be the goal of S&G Software, whose second adventure based on the lovely island of Capri is now shipping to retailers across North America.

With many new adventures, there is often a delay between the European and U.S. release dates. Such was the case for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, but the wait is no more, as cdv Software Entertainment and Focus Home Interactive have announced that The Awakened is at last shipping to American...

Today's announcement from Lighthouse contains a bit of Belief & Betrayal. If you believe that good things come to those that wait, then perhaps you'll feel less betrayed by the unexpected delay of Artematica's Church conspiracy thriller until the first quarter of 2008 in North America, the...

After the late 2006 release of The Blackwell Legacy, Wadjet Eye Games started working on both a sequel and prequel to its independent game featuring a medium and the spirit that haunted her family. The prequel is the first to arrive, as Blackwell Unbound has now been released.

Months after its release in Germany, many gamers were wondering if Undercover: Operation Wintersun would ever see the light of day outside of Germany. That day has finally arrived as Lighthouse and dtp/Anaconda have announced that the game is now shipping to retail stores in North America and...

Nintendo fans have been spoiled by Capcom of late. From the popular Phoenix Wright series on DS to the upcoming Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, the first original adventure for Wii, Capcom has been busy establishing Nintendo's systems as viable adventure platforms. So there must...

Ben Jordan is no stranger to Underground adventure game fans. Francisco Gonzalez, better known as Grundislav, has five Ben Jordan games under his belt so far and with the release of his newest, Ben Jordan: Scourge of the Sea People, he shows no signs of slowing down.

With the end of any prominent convention comes an onslaught of new screenshots, previews, and game information, and this year's Games Convention is certainly no exception. In fact, the trailers are now coming so fast and furious that the only way to keep pace is to round them all up together....

Ever since the second season of Sam & Max was announced, gamers have been waiting with much excitement for more details about the new season and the first episode. The wait is at least partially over now, as the first trailer has been released on the newly-launched Season Two website....

When last we heard from Amanita Design, the independent Czech developer was emerging from the woods with the cult classic Samorost 2. Since then, its focus has evidently become more metallic, as the team has just unveiled its first full-scale adventure, Machinarium.

Black Mirror 2 has been one of the most highly-anticipated sequels since it was officially announced earlier this year. And while the game is proceeding as planned, dtp revealed at the Games Convention that it is doing so at the hands of a new development studio, King Art Games.

The first good news out of the Games Convention in Leipzig comes early, as Adventure-Treff reports that Daedalic Entertainment is the new publisher of Marco Hüllen's previously ill-fated The Whispered World.

Originally a student project, The Whispered World was one of several...

It seems as if A Vampyre Story has been on everyone's lips for quite some time. Now, as the game comes closer to its release, Crimson Cow and Autumn Moon have given gamers something to sink their teeth into with the launch of an updated official website.

While European gamers have had the chance to play Anacapri: The Dream and explore the scenic island of Capri, North Americans continue to wait until the game is released by Got Game Entertainment in the coming weeks.

Fate By Numbers is an English language full-motion video (FMV) game where you play as a private investigator in a futuristic city. It is also the graduation project of four students in Communication and Multimedia Design at Breda, the Netherlands. On a minimal budget, they have recreated the FMV...

World War II has long been rich fodder for books and movies, and is increasingly becoming a popular setting in adventure games. With Undercover: Operation Wintersun set to take gamers behind German lines this summer, next up will be A Stroke of Fate, a new pseudo-historical adventure announced...

Here's something you don't see every day: a Sam & Max game front and center on store shelves. Or at least, you haven't seen one any time recently, but North American fans of the Freelance Police will soon get the chance once again, as The Adventure Company and JoWood announced today that Sam...

Add a dash of conspiracy, a pinch of danger, and a large dollop of buried secrets and you have a recipe not unknown in the adventure genre. However, throw in some 16th century history and epic events and people of the Old Testament and you have Adam Syndrome, the debut title recently announced...

It was so much fun the first time, they figured they'd do it all again, but even better the second time. This refers, of course, to Sam & Max: Season Two, an all-new collection of episodes for the Freelance Police, announced today by Telltale Games and GameTap.

If you're a gamer who likes CD-ROMs just as much as visiting abandoned amusement parks, you're in luck. While it's been available for purchase and download for the past month, the boxed version of Delaware St. John Volume 3: The Seacliff Tragedy has begun shipping to North American retailers....

Following the announcement of CSI: Hard Evidence for the PC almost eight months ago, fans were just about ready to send out a CSI team of their own to investigate the missed spring deadline and resounding silence since then. That silence has been broken with the announcement of Xbox 360 and...

Well over a century after Robert Louis Stevenson first took readers on an unforgettable swashbuckling adventure, game developers are now returning to the fabled Treasure Island in the hopes of finding interactive riches buried in the original tale. While Destination: Treasure Island proved to be...

Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Taking that dictum to heart, xii games not long ago announced Resonance, a science fiction adventure targeted for commercial release some time next year.

The long-awaited A Tale of Two Kingdoms has finally been released. This Sierra-style fantasy adventure tells the tale of two warring kingdoms that must band together to fight off a goblin invasion. It is a story of treachery and magic, spun into a full-length game.

As if blasting into space at ridiculous speeds isn't adventure enough, now one of the most famous astronauts in the world is getting ready for an all-new adventure. No, it's not Neil Armstrong, Juri Gagarin, or even Albert the monkey. It's the fictional Perry Rhodan, coming to save mankind on...

News of a Japanese adventure game coming to the Nintendo DS is becoming relatively common, though it's often uncertain at first that they will ever release in English markets. After the February 2007 release of Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village in Japan, similar doubts began to arise...

There's been an eerie silence of late surrounding Jonathan Boakes' new supernatural adventure. But like any good ghost story, just when you let your guard down, Got Game Entertainment jumps out of the darkness with the announcement that a publishing deal has been signed to bring The Lost Crown:...

The many fans of Capcom's popular Ace Attorney series will be pleased to know that the fourth game in the series, known in Japan by the name of Gyakuten Saiban 4, is reportedly being prepared for an international release. As revealed on the NeoGAF forum, Phoenix Wright producer Minae Matsukawa...

With more and more traditional adventures being ported to the DS, Nintendo's acclaimed handheld continues to establish itself as an important adventure platform. Better yet, two of its most popular franchises will soon be getting sequels.

That's because we're going to be hearing a lot about the New Mexico city, since Jack Thompson's promised video game violence lawsuit is going to land there today. As reported by the Albuquerque Journal Thompson and a local...

Some politicians in Australia are taking issue with the official government rating given to Rockstar's controversial Bully, or, as the game is now known outside of the North American market, Canis Canem Edit.

The West Australian is reporting that New South Wales Education Minister...

Sports games endeavor to include accurate player rosters and game adaptations of movies try to use real actor voices and likenesses whenever possible. So it should come as no surprise that the U.S. Army is using real soldiers as characters in its America's Army game.

"Hey, U.K., if you don't want that video game industry, we'll take it..."

That seems to be the message some Scandinavian officials are sending to their British counterparts. As reported by GameIndustry.biz, Erik Robertson, leader of Nordic Game, a government-funded organization,...

You want the inside scoop on yesterday's video game law hearing in Utah? We've got it covered like a blanket here at GamePolitics, including the impressions of a local game developer who attended the hearing.

Although he indicated last week that he would be there, anti-game activist...

As the smoke begins to clear on last week's school shooting at Montreal's Dawson College, Canadian media pundits are offering opinions on the relationship between violent video games and the rampage. In the Calgary Sun, columnist Licia Corbella writes:

Anyway, GameDaily BIZ has an interview up with the Professor Jenkins (pictured) who is probably best known by GP readers as the author of Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked. Here are some highlights from...

It's Friday, and that means GP's "The Political Game" column is up on Joystiq.

Today's rant is about the media's rush to link video games to the tragic shooting rampage at Montreal's Dawson College. You know, the one committed by Kimveer Gill (left) a 25-year-old, heavily-armed,...

"The world, as usual, is more complex than we'd like it to be," said Georgia Tech Ian Bogost, addressing concerns that an amateur video game based on the Columbine massacre inspired a 25-year-old man to go on a shooting rampage in Montreal on Wednesday.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE)today announced that the cumulative sales of the PlayStation®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment system reached a milestone of 50 million units(1) worldwide, as of March 29, 2011.?SCE also announced that PlayStation®Move sales surpassed 8 million...

Explore the new world of Eorzea.
Few game releases unravel as interestingly as an MMO's. Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV, successor to the niche Final Fantasy XI, further proves the point. Faced with a strict timeline and fierce competition, Square Enix launched the game somewhat...

After an E3 showing filled to the brim with Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and Donkey Kong, it didn't take too astute an observer to realize that Nintendo has been beating the same drums for a while now. The core characters that make up the Nintendo brand have arguably been over-taxed by the...

Guess what everybody...The E3 2010 Microsoft Press Conference kicks of at 10 a.m. PT today! We will be here covering all the latest happenings from the event. If you want to watch it live on TV, then you can by watching it on Spike TV! Details below:

It's that time of the year again where videogame developers, publishers, and press meet up in Los Angeles for annual E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo. GameBump will be on hand LIVE with coverage of this crazy crowded expo. New games will be announced, new trailers, screenshots and hands on...

Twitter is at its all time high right now and what better way to have GameBump join in on the fun. Want to follow GameBump and get all the news we post instantly? Then click the link below and start following us today!

We are hearing the the upcoming Formula 1 2009 is shaping up quite nicely in the studio and to show it off is a brand new trailer showcasing the split-screen action. Enjoy!
Video Games | Formula 1 2009 | Grande Premio do Brasil Trailer HDXBox 360 | Playstation 3 |...

According to Kotaku, Microsoft has banned users who have obtained early, unauthorized versions of Halo 3: ODST on Xbox Live. As Xbox Live Chief, Stephen Toulouse, was quoted in the news article:
"I can be clear that this applies to illegimate copies only, the ban covers the Xbox...

Despite the fact it was questioned whether or not the Locusts eat Imulsion in Gears of War 2, that hasn't stopped a company from releasing "Imulsion" energy drinks with the Gears logo.
The cans are priced at $4 each and can be purchased online at Amazon.

Sony has officially announced the PlayStation 3 Slim will be available on September 1 in North America. The lighter system features a 120GB hard drive and will carry a price tag of $299.
The current 80GB PS3 model has received a price cut and will be effectively priced at $299 in...

Square Enix has launched a teaser website that reads "VII Days" with a countdown timer clock. At the time of this news story, the teaser site displays "IV Days".
Exactly what the countdown is for or its relation with the original "VII" roman numeral is unknown at this time....

MCV has reported that a "Game of the Year" version of LittleBigPlanet is in development for the PlayStation 3. This new version is expected to include all of the downloadable content available on the PlayStation Network this past year.
Sony has not offered a comment about the report at this...

Last year we quietly launched E3Feed just before E3 2008 to mild fanfare.This year we've completely revamped the site. It's better, faster, stronger.
Besides a slick new design, some new features we've added include a more twitter-like automatic updating system, the ability to customize...

An early trailer showing Team Ico's third project is available due to an exclusive video posted by the PlayStation Lifestyle website. The video shows a young boy who bears a striking resemblance to the lead protagonist from the game, Ico.
Sony has offered no...

Echoes of Time is a fun hack n’ slash multiplayer game. The game improves upon its Ring of Fates predecessor with a greater emphasis on multiplayer combat and teamwork. Though the Wii version leaves much to be desired, the game is still a solid title on the DS to be enjoyed with friends....

Jarrett Lee Conaway has made his rounds across the videogame and film industry. He previously worked here at Gaming Horizon Inc. as an Executive Editor back in the days of PSX Network when we were part of IGN.com Affiliation Network and now he is about to graduate at the University of Southern...

Crispy Gamer has received word from THQ that the publisher is putting Big Huge Games, responsible for the Rise of Nations series, up for the sale, and that the studio will be closed if a buyer is not found.
Also, two other studios, Heavy Iron Studios and Incinerator, will become independent...

Though details are rather scarce, Joystiq has discovered that the latest issue of Game Informer's cover story on Bioshock 2 has confirmed that the game will feature multiplayer.
We'll be on the lookout for more details once someone has gotten their hands on the issue. Stay tuned.

Activision
has announced that it will continue to milk the Guitar Hero franchise,
revealing that five new iterations, including one based off of the works of Van
Halen, will make their way to store shelves in 2009, according to Eurogamer.

NIS's game about explosive blue demon penguins who consider fanny packs to the the pinnacle of modern fashion has been released to wreak havoc on non-believers. Feel free to pick up this maddeningly hard gem for the PSP at your local retailer or hit up NISA's awesomely named Rosenqueen.com. ...

The weekly Virtual Console and WiiWare updates are here, making available two new games for download: Evasive Space, a new WiiWare title, and Life Force, a classic NES shooter. The former is 1,000 Wii points, while the latter will cost you 500.

In a move that, honestly, surprises no one, Nintendo has essentially shelved plans of releasing the best SNES RPG (empirical fact; eat it FF/CT fans) on Virtual Console. Earthbound fans, accustomed to being the red-headed, freckled, bastard step-children of a drunken, abusive Nintendo, have long...

As usual, Sony has released the weekly Playstation Store update today, and this week marks the long-awaited release of thatgamecompany's latest project, Flower. There's also a demo of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift and some DLC for Guitar Hero and Rock Band along with the usual extras.

Originally scheduled for a Japanese release on March 28, Dragon Quest IX has been delayed until July 11, according to Joystiq (via NeoGAF).
It seems like Square Enix discovered some major bugs in the game's code and delayed the game as an emergency precaution, since they have been...

"The truly magical thing about virtual cities is that they often imprint themselves on our lives in much the same way that physical geographies do." Columnist Katherine Cross examines where virtual worlds succeed--and fail. ...

During Build, Microsoft released a brand new code editor called "Visual Studio Code"! In this post I will go over what it is, what it isn& #146;t, and how you can use it with your Unity and/or Corona projects. ...

Looking for advice on how to tackle game difficulty? Klei Entertainment designer and programmer James Lantz offers a slew of practical advice on the topic, in our free-to-download Game Career Guide. ...

Mobile game streaming startup Mobcrush publicly rolled out the welcome mat for a pair of high-profile new hires today: former Google Play Games exec Koh Kim and one-time Apple App Store games guy Greg Essig. ...

"The basic premise is to never have duplicate code in your program. It may sound obvious, why would anyone just copy and paste code? But code duplication is actually a surprisingly common programming problem." ...

"The majority of people never get anywhere close to the end of games. It's much easier to start a great story if you don't have to worry about where you're going with it. We all deserve what we keep falling for." ...

"Knowledge about color spans across several disciplines: physics, biology, psychology, art, and design. It is a useful tool for the artist to create emotion, and for the game designer to emphasize function." ...

After 17 years on the Internet, AtomicGamer, the site who has been hosting LinuxGames is shutting down at the end of the month. I think it is time also that we put LinuxGames to bed as well. It has been a wild and fascinating ride all these years watching the Linux community mature and come...

There aren?t a lot of 2D side-scrolling RPGs, I can?t think of any that aren?t from consoles like Odin Sphere on the Playstation 2 and Valkyrie Profile on the Playstation and Playstation Portable. Certainly none were cyberpunk. We?ve had a resurgence of cyberpunk gaming with the isometric...

Doctor Entertainment?s multiplayer custom vehicular combat game, Gear Up is now out of Steam?s Early Access program. The game is free-to-play, though it lacks traditional micro transactions and instead has a basic and a premium version on offer that let you choose how many customization options...

Twin-stick shooter Crimsonland?s ?thousands of aliens, giant spiders, and more are on the attack?? on Linux. Crimsonland was originally released in 2003, and this is the hugely updated version originally released early in June 2014. They had a few comments about the porting process in their...

Developer TheShortAndTheTall have had their third-person action puzzler The Body Changer in Steam?s Early Access program and it?s now available for Linux. I had a chance to play it and it is interesting although I?m not sure how fitting the ?metroidvania? description is as it seems the developers...

Aspyr is on a roll, and now they?re doing remasters. This time it?s Quantic Dream?s Fahrenheit. Or as I knew it here in the US, Indigo Prophecy. In addition to updating the graphics, and adding proper controller support, Aspyr has also decided to mash the names together with a colon. Fahrenheit...

It?s entirely possible that you were born after Tim Schafer?s adventure masterpiece, Grim Fandango, was originally released 17 years ago. If that?s the case, school sucks but here is some good news. Grim Fandango has been re-released with updated visuals, music, and the best part is that the tank...

The developer of Dead Island has brought out another Adjective Noun zombie slasher. This time it has a greater focus on parkour and we get our Linux version on release day. Dead Island was pretty great, hopefully this one is even better. Dying Light on Steam.

Sci-Fi storytelling game, Elegy for a Dead World has been released from Dejobaan Games, makers of such fine games as AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome and Drunken Robot Pornography. Elegy tasks you with visiting dead planets and writing about them. You?ll be able to share and read...

Having recently brought a handful of games to Linux, Aspyr has opened a Linux games section of their GameAgent store. It?s interesting to see Aspyr come to Linux after having been known as a Mac developer for so long. Though this store just seems to be another interface to buy Steam download...

Surprisingly, Activision (under the resurrected Sierra ?indie? label) has released Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions for Linux. Originally an Xbox 360 Arcade (digital download) game, this arcade twin-stick shooter has high score challenges and a ton of fun if it?s anything like the original. Geometry...

The waiting time is over. Now is the MMORPG time for goats eveywhere. It?s a free update for Goat Simulator owners and you can play dozens of quests across five classes to level up to level 101. Goat Simulator on Steam.

The beautiful Action-RPG, Transistor, from Supergiant Games (the team that built the Bastion), has been brought to Linux by Ethan Lee. He details his travails and technical challenges in this blog post: Basically, I took all the files in their MonoGame branch that referred to OpenTK, and replaced...

We don?t post many kickstarters, and I personally try to avoid doing so because 90% of them aren?t going to ship at the budget they?ve chosen, on time, or with most of the features they?ve talked about. With that preface I?m fairly psyched for The Black Glove, from former Bioshock devs Day for...

Do you like murdering zombies on tropical islands? Dead Island is pretty great at it and is somewhat surprisingly now available for Linux years after it was released. By far the most fun you?ll ever have brutally slashing melee weapons at zombies. Plug in a 360 pad for bonus analog control over...

If you?ve ever played a multiplayer, split-screen, console game you?re going to be right at home with multiplayer split-screen FPS Screencheat. It?s like those older games, except everyone is invisible at all times and it?s impossible to be polite and avoid looking at their corner of the screen....

We don?t post much in the way of editorials, but it seems inappropriate to remain silent on an issue that is making everyone who plays games or is associated with them look bad. If you?re not familiar with the issue, there?s a hashtag on twitter called #GamerGate (that link will take you to...

All of that Borderlands 2 porting work that Asypr did hasn?t gone to waste. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was just released and is a simultaneous release with Mac and Windows. It is a little odd that this is a full-price $60 game, the early impressions I?ve heard haven?t been extremely positive as...

Valve recently added a new storefront to Steam, and in addition to enhanced search controls for finding games available for Linux, you can now follow us on our Steam curation page. We?ll post some recommendations there, and you should join our group if you?d like to chat or play with your fellow...

Colorful shooters a plenty as Borderlands 2 has finally been release for Linux. This is the 2nd port from Aspyr, who were commonly known as a Mac porting house and also brought us XCom: Enemy Unknown. Gearbox?s Borderlands 2 has tons of content and is a super fun mix of RPG and FPS. Borderlands 2...

Would you like to drive a limousine that is constantly spinning while you try to deliver passengers to their destinations? In Roundabout you can do that and watch some great 70?s B-Movie cut scenes in-between levels Roundabout on Steam

Castle-builder Stronghold 3 has been released. It?s got some great graphics and seemed decently fun from the couple hours I spent with it. Though it has mostly negative reviews on Steam, we can finally play it in Linux. Stronghold 3 Gold on Steam

If you?d like to blow up enemy towers, castles, and such, Cannon Brawl by Turtle Sandbox has been released. It?s a bit of a cross between worms and tower defense. Our sister-site timedoctor.org has a review and video. Or you can skip to getting it on Steam where it?s 25% for a bit: Cannon Brawl [?]

Some players have recommended skipping the recent cyberpunky CRPG Shadowrun Returns and going to straight to the Dragonfall expansion. Now you can do just that with the standalone expansion pack, Dragonfall Director?s Cut. This director?s cut of the Dragonfall expansion pack adds new...

Éric Chahi?s seminal platformer Another World is finally available for Linux. Originally released in 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST, this is a native port by Ryan Gordon of the 20th Anniversary Edition. It?s also known as Out Of This World. There is a detailed...

A new development release of Wine has been announced. New items in this release include: Still more DirectWrite functions. Improvements to the common File Dialog. A number of C runtime improvements. Various bug fixes. Download: [ Wine 1.7.26 ]

If you?ve ever wanted to be the only human student in a school full of pigeons your time is now. The visual novella Hatoful Boyfriend has been released. You are invited to class. This is an updated remake from the 2011 original flash game, which was also updated later in 2011. You can find way, [?]

Would you like to build a Mountain? If so, David O?Reilly and Double Fine have your back with 99 cents of mountain building. The description is simply: ~ you are mountain ? you are god ~ Ambient procedural mountain game, as seen on The Internet. Mountain on Steam

High-speed action-arcade game Trace Vector has been released on Steam: Trace Vector is a high speed action arcade game with puzzle elements. Featuring a modern take on vector style graphics, Trace Vector plays like an easy to learn, hard to master, game of the golden age of the 80?s video...

GOG.com announced this week that they now offer Linux game titles! A while ago, we’ve announced our plans to add Linux support as one of the features of our digital platform, with 100 games on the launch day sometime this fall. We’ve put much time and effort into this project and now...

My beloved Kerbal Space Program has been updated to version 0.24, dubbed “First Contract” because of an enhanced Career mode: Players will now have the opportunity to take on Contracts, manage Funds, a new in-game currency that allows players to buy rocket and plane parts, and earn...

The Verge posted a look at The Nightmare Cooperative as an intro to the usually uncompromisingly sadistic roguelike genre: At the outset, you control a single explorer, moving one square at a time through a series of rooms. The turn-based structure means that speed isn’t important, but...

Key12 Games? RPG Battlepaths has been released, here?s their announcement: The Linux Version of Battlepaths is now available on the store! Hundreds of thousands of Linux users will finally be able to save the world from the evil Chaos Overlord, fighting their way through the realms and testing...

Thor: God of Thunder takes players through a spectacular, epic-scale original third-person adventure for which Eisner Award-winning writer and lead Thor comic book author Matt Fraction served as story consultant.

Players progress through the game to learn new combat skills, and earn in-game currency to spend on a massive array of devastating weapons and equipment to propel players to victory in 32-player online battles.

In this debut add-on package, players will return to the Castle as Gabriel to help Laura, the former servant to the vampire Carmilla, destroy the unruly evil that was previously kept in check by the recently slain Queen.

In addition, according to UK Chart Track's March 21st weekly report, Homefront's reported first weekend sell-through ranked the game as #1 for the week, as well as the best-selling week-one new console release in 2011 in the UK.

Stratics take an approving look at flagship's free-to-play Mythos:Overall, I found playing this MMO to be a great experience. This game is cute and I had a lot of fun. With playable quests, instanced dungeons, a complex skillset, an achievements list and more, Mythos has a surprising amount of...

Issue 52 contains:Trey and Dave have a fireside chat with the folks over at Realms of Annakolia . An NWN1 persistent world. Included are DM Barry who is a team member of the Community Expansion Pack (CEP) and a Neverwinter Connections Grand hall of Fame Dungeon Master! And his other half DM...

PlayNow had a short review of Soldak Entertainment's Depths of Peril, awarding it an overall score of 7.8:The game could have introduced its varied elements better, but give credit to the developers for a game that explores new territory and creates a living world where actions have consequence...

Kieron Gillen writes the Eurogamer preview of Fallout 3:This is especially pointed as the non-turn-based side fails to convince as much as you'd hope. While "Oblivion with guns" has been the rather sarcastic description from cynics, my personal take was....

Multiplayer Patch 1.3 for Hellgate: London has gone live:Greetings, Hellgaters, and welcome to Hellgate: London Patch 1.3!Patch 1.3 is a beast of a update, offering no less than eight new features to the game including Shared Stash, a Premium Item Merchant, Donation Collectors and Global Buffs,...

According to the Press Release:Karlsruhe, May 24th 2008 - Gamers who bought the Game-of-the-Year edition of "Two Worlds" (available in the European shops for 29.99 Euro since the beginning of April) were thrilled with the brand new PC multiplayer add-on for the RPG - and now they can download the...

The Mythos Beta test is being restricted to English-speaking countries:Please understand that the Mythos Closed Beta Test was designed for North American and select European territories. When we do open our Beta, we cannot have countries outside these regions playing a non-localized Mythos...

GamaSutra argue that Gary Gygax was the father of the video game:Still, players needed something to generate the experience -- where do the "forest" or "castle" come from? Gygax and Arneson's answer was another human brain: the Dungeon Master's. The DM of a D&D campaign runs and arbitrates...

Ray Muzyka (CEO & GM) and Greg Zeschuk (President & GM) sat down for a GDC chat with GameDaily. this is a snip about the nature of RPG's:BIZ: Have you guys ever been tempted to make something other than an RPG?Muzyka: We would argue we're making all kinds of things other than RPGs....

The fourth Underground Communique has now been issued for Hellgate: London with the announcement that Single Player Patch 1.2 has been released and Multiplayer Patch 1.3 is due tomorrow:After about two weeks in public beta testing, the Single Player Patch 1....

Kikizo have posted a four page Pete Hines preview/demo writeup of Fallout 3:Taking your time is probably a good thing, because one aspect of our demo that won't carry over into the main game is the omnipresence of ammo. Hines hot-linked ammo and Stempaks to the Xbox 360 D-pad and during our demo...

Gaming Today reports that:New Downloadable Content for Lost Odyssey is coming to Xbox Live Marketplace April 25. There are three new items included in the DLC. "The Shattered Bond " unlocks a new dream, the "Killer Machine" ring is forged to specialize in fighting against magic-powered weapons...

RPG Codex chat to Iron Tower's Vince. D. Weller about upcoming indie RPG Age of Decadence:3. You have a team that spans the globe and no physical office space to work in. How do you handle the challenge of communication? Do you have a regular routine of online chats? What role do email and forums...

The Hellgate London site has been updated with the news that the game's soundtrack is now available on iTunes:Announced about a month ago, the Hellgate: London official soundtrack is available for purchase. However, the album can now be found on iT...

Games Radar take an early glance at Obsidian's spy RPG, Alpha Protocol:Conversations will whip along at a realistic pace, with you selecting changes in how Thorton responds to maintain the flow of real-life chatter. Gaming's former forays into the lives of secret agents, Deus Ex aside, have only...

Take the phenomenal Planescape: Torment. The game has the text compositions of many novels over, all carefully detailed to compliment the artistically designed ambiance. This is a game which combines literary brilliance, an amazing script, with a rather weak but...

GameBanshee have taken a lengthy look at Spiderweb Software's Avernum 5:Overall, I was impressed by the feel of the game and the consistent futility of the frontier societies that runs as a thread throughout. This helped alleviate the somewhat mediocre nature of the plot itself....

Ten Ton Hammer have posted a Q and A with Flagship's Travis Baldree and Max Shaefer about upcoming free-to-play Mythos:Q: Will crafters in Mythos be popular? That is, will their items be as good as drops or better?A: The best answer to that is that they should be "different," but neither better...

OXM spoke to Reality Pump about what went wrong with the original Two Worlds and why the Temptation expansion will improve things:With Two Worlds being released to mixed reviews, what is the main issue Reality Pump will be looking to address with The Temptation?Two Worlds was not only the first...

GamePlasma have taken a look into the world of Mythos:Flagship Studios may have caught flack for its problems with their last title, Hellgate: London, but this time around they can't go wrong with something they are giving away for free. The free to play model for MMO's will only become more...

The president of the AQI-owned feelplus, Ray Nakazato, spoke to Gamasutra about the developer's history and future in a long interview:How do you feel about the development of Lost Odyssey? Are you satisfied with how it went?Ray Nakazato: Yeah. In terms of how the project went, it came out OK....

Fansite Diablo3.com attempt to clarify their previous teaser related announcement:In the past days there have been a lot of activity in the network sites after the countdown teaser. A few forum threads keep continuous debate between Diablo fans of what this announcement will be....

Jonric's Journal takes a short look at the chances of Sacred 2 becoming a success:It's impossible not to notice that the visuals are much more competitive this time around with a brighter, richer color palette plus lots of detail. This improvement addresses what was almost certainly the most...

IGN take a look at Jason and Hercules, key characters in Liquid Entertainment and Codemasters' Rise of the Argonauts:The young king of peaceful Iolcus, an isle of tranquil villages and rolling farmlands, Jason expected to live a quiet life of service to his people....

7.2 and a respectable review for Fantasy Wars over at Strategy Informer: It's very pleasant to play, it's easy to both play briefly and walk away, or to completely lose track of time in the "just-one-more-turn" scenario. The graphics are pleasing and enjoyable, the AI is frustratingly dumb at...

CVG plays Devils Advocate in a feature about the importance of story in games: A few years ago, a lovely chap writing a thesis on gaming visited PC Gamer to chat about what they believed made a great game. I remember incoherently trotting out the usual buzzwords: story, characterisation, freedom....

According to EuroGamer:Bethesda's Pete Hines has confirmed that there will be no demo for Fallout 3.Speaking exclusively to Eurogamer in the shape of Kieron Gillen, Hines said there was "no way" to slice a portion of the world off and have it stand on its own....

Gamespot didn't seem to like Stranger very much, rating it 4/10:Unnecessary and awkward actually sums up Stranger in its entirety. This isn't an entirely awful game, just a mediocre one hampered by some bizarre design decisions, a deeply peculiar setting, and a terrible interface....

In honor of director Mario Bava’s birthday, Shudder TV is having a Bava-thon with nine of his classic horror films chosen by friend of the Gutter Colin Geddes streaming free online all weekend. See the line-up here and watch here.

This week’s Guest Star Kate Laity writes about the television adaptation of Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell. Laity is an author, Medieval Studies scholar and History Witch. At Edge-Lit 4, my publisher, Adele Wearing of Fox Spirit Books, was on a panel about Grimdark. What is ‘grim...

The Bowery Boys Podcast dedicates an episode to New York City in the history of comic books. ?In the 1890s a newspaper rivalry between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer helped bring about the birth of the comic strip and, a few decades later, the comic book. Today, comic book...

Pornokitsch’s One Comic Podcast looks at Red Sonja #10: “To everyone’s surprise, despite some of the covers and the character’s reputation, this isn’t the exploitative boobs’n’swordplay production it could have been. How did it achieve that? Listen and...

Los Angeles Magazine has a gallery of self-portraits of Bunny Yeager and a bit about the career of a model and photographer most famous for her pin-up photographs of Bettie Page. “Having dedicated her life to photography and modeling, not to mention publishing 30 books on the subject (one...

While playing Batman: Arkham Knight, Austin Walker wants to walk the streets of Gotham. ?There are lots of different kinds of Batman fantasies?and I?m not looking to invalidate any of them?but throughout this four game series, the developers have largely given me the same one over and over. For...

At Die Die Danger Die Kill, Todd thinks about Karel Zeman?s Vynalez Zkasy. ?Vynalez Zkasy (released in the U.S. as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne) may represent Czech FX pioneer Karel Zeman?s quest to emulate the style of 19th century fantasy illustration?to the end of presenting the future...

Memory is an unreliable narrator. It seems so absolutely sure of itself when it?s telling you things that it?s easy to forget it can?t wholly be trusted. There are always gaps and discrepancies, sections that get revised in light of subsequent events or reshaped to soften the sharpest edges. Our...

Mike White, Rob St. Mary and Cinema Snob’s Brad Jones explore the mystery of Alien 3 and its production at The Projection Booth. “We talked to Vincent Ward who brought the idea of ‘monks in space’ to the game and the late John Fasano who worked on a few drafts of the Alien...

“I write for my partners. I write with them and to them. I seek collaborators and co-conspirators rather than employees. I share ownership of the books I do (Hawkeye obviously an exception) with the artists for whom I write as a rule. They make more than me, too, as a rule, and they earn...

Daniel José Older has an ongoing list of people of color who write urban fantasy. You can see it here?and seem some discussion of ?narrow genre subdivisions? and writers of color between Older and Nalo Hopkinson. ?And as complex as it is, I think there?s power in seeing who?s out there...

At Comics 212, Christopher Butcher has some interesting thoughts about recent shifts in comics. ?So, basically, my theory goes that the manga boom in the late 90s sort of blew up every single thing that the industry thought about comics, and who the audience is for comics, and what...

Joanna Robinson interviews Noelle Stevenson. “Since she left art school, Stevenson has been busier than ever. At 23 years old, Stevenson just had the kind of year that would make even the most seasoned comics writer turn Hulk green with envy. She co-launched a wildly successful all-girl...

I’ve been watching the CW television series iZombie and thinking of few things. Like, how glad I am that it’s not a faithful adaptation of the comic iZombie. And whether all apocalypses, even zombie ones, are personal. And I can’t help wondering if my zombie fatigue has gone...

Graveyard Shift Sisters Eden Royce interviews writer Jayde Brooks and reviews Brooks? Daughter of Gods and Shadows. ?If you?re looking for a sweeping, dark adventure/quest novel, look no further. This story had what I love to read in a book: strong female characters and the ultimate in high...

?At a café in lower Chelsea, author and historian Lisa Davis leaned across the table to pass 40-year-old lesbian gossip to me. ?Corinne wanted to take everything from Lee,? she said. ?So Lee called the Mafia. They sent Big George to Long Island, and that was the end of the problem. Corinne...

At Women Write About comics, J. A. Micheline writes about “The White Privilege, White Audacity and White Priorities of Strange Fruit #1.” JG Jones & Mark Waid’s new comic about an alien landing in the American South in 1927, an alien who appears as a Black man. Meanwhile,...

At Movie Morlocks, Kimberly Lindbergs writes about composer Elisabeth Luytens on the 106th anniversary of Luytens’ birth. “Much of Lutyens music, particularly later in life, is rather dark, jarring and cinematic. Her background in Theosophy and Eastern mysticism is apparent in the...

Dylan Marron has made a series of videos based on every word spoken by a person of color in various films, including Moonrise Kingdom, Her and Into The Woods. “Marron, a biracial native of Venezuela who grew up in New York, started the video series to figure out why so few people of colour...

In the latter half of the 1950s, it seemed like every alien race with a saucer was high-tailing it to Earth with dreams of conquest, colonization, and a little lovin’ with the locals. The invaders of the 1950s came in many shapes and sizes. Some were blobs. Others were giant insects. A few...

Marya E. Gates shares her favorites among the movies she?s watched during her six months of only watching female filmmakers. ?But this isn?t just about me and my love of films, I want this project to help others discover films by women as well. As Dazed announces its Female Firsts director?s...

At Slate, Laura Hudson writes about Ernest Cline’s new book, Armada; gaming and greater geek culture; and the perils of nostalgia. “Do we want to tell stories that make sense of the things we used to love, that help us remember the reasons we were so drawn to them, and create new...

At Vox, Phil Edwards profiles special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya and interviews August Ragone about Tsuburaya’s career. “A director, cinematographer, and producer, Tsuburaya is best known for creating the special effects behind Japanese classics like Godzilla (1954), Mothra (1961),...

At the New Republic, B. D. McClay writes about Shirley Jackson and a new collection containing previously unpublished stories and essays by Jackson. “Let Me Tell You, on the other hand, is for the already-converted fan, who will be delighted to read so many new stories and essays. The...

At Teleport City, the Gutter’s own Carol writes about 12 books that vary in reputability and their harrowing nature. They include books by Shirley Jackson, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith and Herman Melville.

Anne Billson has posted a 1985 interview she did with director George Miller (the Mad Max films). Miller talks about many things including Aunty Entity’s probable past as a hero and Max as, in Mel Gibson’s words, “a closet human being.” (Thanks, Matt!)

Living just outside the gates of hell is a very convenient plot device. It handily solves the narrative challenge of providing a plausibly endless supply of demons and evil beasties for a protagonist to fight, and it’s not like hell ever goes away. Maybe you get lucky and manage to close...

At New York Magazine, David Wallace-Wells writes about bees, colony collapse disorder and beekeeper Dave Hackenberg. ?It?s been a long decade for bees. We?ve been panicking about them nonstop since 2006, when beekeeper Dave Hackenberg inspected 2,400 hives wintering in Florida and found 400 of...

Andrew Nette has a pair of interesting pieces on pulp you might be interested in. First, he writes about ?the New Pulp? and a bit about Fifty Shades of Gray in ?Fifty Shades of Pulp.? Then he writes about pulp and literacy and furthering social advancement in ?Pulp and Circumstance.? ?Most...

Transcript from BAFTA?s tribute to director Johnnie To, ?Johnnie To: A Life In Pictures.? It?s a great interview with To about his films and process. ?Like when I made The Mission I didn?t have a script. It was 1999 and I didn?t have any money so we went to Taiwan and they gave us very [?]

This month’s Guest Star is John Crye, a storyteller, filmmaker and producer and a long time friend of the Gutter. For as long as I can remember, I have loved movies. I consumed all things cinema long before I was involved in the business of entertainment, even before my first jobs managing...

I tend to agree with this post on CrunchGear about the iPhone being a major player in the gaming market. Such is the life of a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” type of device. It’s a great overall device, but it doesn’t have a killer app.
Is it a great phone?...

Hey folks! It’s time for my annual “ima gonna do better” post. As you all know and adore, I’m sure, I make a post about how I’d like to improve Portagame, increase posts, cover more topics, etc. Yup, all that. Here. Now.
And it’s all really gonna happen...

Psst. I know it’s Saturday night and we all have lives…wait, no we don’t, we’re gamers. Amazon must have known this when they created this Gold Box deal. The Rock Box Ottoman that pops your Rock Band drum-set out like a jack-in-the-box, and happens to store your...

Man, I have all sorts of mixed feelings about this. Hardcore Gamer has placed their entire business, websites and printed mag, for sale on ebay with a starting bid of $42,000.
If I only had $42,000…
But honestly, is that the kind of shakeout that video game journalism is going...

Bringing life, and light, back to the Gameboy Pocket, photobucket user TehBibin shows us that a good mod for a good system is sometimes worth the wait. The Gameboy Pocket is a fond memory for most handheld geeks as it was the first time Nintendo reintroduced the GB with a smaller, more sleek...

We may have Apple, but the Chinese have something that we don’t: the Oppo line of MP3 players and PMPs. Oppo makes some very sexy players that are a class of their own. At the top of that class is the Oppo MUSE PMP.

Contrary to what you have heard, the hottest toy for gamers this year is NOT the Wii Fit. Nor is it the PS3 or those YALENDS (Yet Another Limited Edition Nintendo DS) that were released for black friday.
No, this years hottest game system is the Nintendo DSi. If you own the DSi, I guarantee...

I have yet to mention the PSP 3000 for a couple of reasons. 1) It isn’t that big of a deal. And 2) It isn’t that big of a deal.
What the PSP 3000 does bring is a brighter and more crisp screen, an onboard microphone, a PS button (for other-than-Sony-fanboys, think of this as the...

As I watch the trailer for PictoImage, I can’t help but get the feeling that “this is lame”. Now I’m going to stress that this is just from watching the trailer. I have yet to review the game, and I probably never will.
The concept is sound. Utilize the DS touchpad...

Time to voice up Portagamers…
You’ve probably seen the SLOOOOOOW transition we are making to a new site. We still have a new template underway, but we are running fine and dandy on this new WordPress install. (WordPress is so hawt!) Now we need to start considering a mascot. A...

Pocket Ninja’s kick ass! I wish I would have had a pocket ninja when I went through middle school. Not many kids messed with me because I wore camouflage, but knowing I had a pocket ninja on me would be enough to boost my self confidence through that horrible stage of life. I’d get [...]

Black was too generic. Silver was lame. White was too much of a fashion victim. Red was… well ok, red was cool. But all those are the PSP colors of yesteryear.
Welcome to Generation Blue!
It’s blue! And we’re excited like Christmas. We’ve waited and waited,...

Our first day back and we couldn’t ask for better news! Apogee has just announced that they are respawning from the dead. Their first creation will be a Duke Nukem Trilogy for handhelds! While we are still geek faithfuls who are still waiting for the Second Coming of DNfrom 3D Realms,...

Our first day back and we couldn’t ask for better news! Apogee has just announced that they are respawning from the dead. Their first creation will be a Duke Nukem Trilogy for handhelds! While we are still geek faithfuls who are still waiting for the Second Coming of DNfrom 3D Realms,...

Friday we had the iPhone, tomorrow we have E3, so it seemed sense to launch a new and improved Portagame.com this weekend. Well, it’s new as in we use Wordpress now. There’s still a lot of things I want to do to the site, and a custom design was in the works at one point. [...]

Friday we had the iPhone, tomorrow we have E3, so it seemed sense to launch a new and improved Portagame.com this weekend. Well, it’s new as in we use Wordpress now. There’s still a lot of things I want to do to the site, and a custom design was in the works at one point. [...]

Hey everyone,
I’m finally migrating away from b2evolution and onto wordpress. In the process I have to kill the template (temporarily) and also disable comments (more permanent, at least until wordpress is up and running). Migrations are never easy, so wish me luck!

Hey everyone,
I’m finally migrating away from b2evolution and onto wordpress. In the process I have to kill the template (temporarily) and also disable comments (more permanent, at least until wordpress is up and running). Migrations are never easy, so wish me luck!

The fellas at the Giz have stumbled upon an interesting patent being developed by Sony Ericsson. Labeled as a “MOBILE INFORMATION TERMINAL APPARATUS” in order to, where guessing here, deter patent crawlers looking for a PSP/Gaming Phone application from Sony (HA! They got you!), the...

The fellas at the Giz have stumbled upon an interesting patent being developed by Sony Ericsson. Labeled as a “MOBILE INFORMATION TERMINAL APPARATUS” in order to, where guessing here, deter patent crawlers looking for a PSP/Gaming Phone application from Sony (HA! They got you!), the...

There are only a few of the big name video sites (Google and GameTrailers yes, but no, not YouTube) that offer their video content in PSP and iPod compatible MP4 format. It’s something we definitely need more of. Have you ever been at a party, or a friends house, or even lunch with your...

There are only a few of the big name video sites (Google and GameTrailers yes, but no, not YouTube) that offer their video content in PSP and iPod compatible MP4 format. It’s something we definitely need more of. Have you ever been at a party, or a friends house, or even lunch with your...

Dear Current and Past Portagame Readers,
As we mentioned before, Portagame is in a flux of change at the moment. We have a single goal: to provide a site for handheld gaming news. We were off to a strong start, but with a series of life changes, the site came to a grinding halt. I’m...

Dear Current and Past Portagame Readers,
As we mentioned before, Portagame is in a flux of change at the moment. We have a single goal: to provide a site for handheld gaming news. We were off to a strong start, but with a series of life changes, the site came to a grinding halt. I’m...

Hey Portagame pondskippers! Now’s your chance to get in on a little bit of free action. Cell phones are a (evil?) necessity in today’s world, so why not buy in on a little fun while you are at it? The biggest online mobile phone shop in the U.K. is offering free game consoles and...

Hey Portagame pondskippers! Now’s your chance to get in on a little bit of free action. Cell phones are a (evil?) necessity in today’s world, so why not buy in on a little fun while you are at it? The biggest online mobile phone shop in the U.K. is offering free game consoles and...

WOW!
That’s pretty much all I have to say about this ad for the PSP. I work full time in the advertising industry and I’m still debating if this ad is 100% diabolical genius (look at the buzz it is getting) or if it is just plain tacky and distasteful.
Did it work? Well...

WOW!
That’s pretty much all I have to say about this ad for the PSP. I work full time in the advertising industry and I’m still debating if this ad is 100% diabolical genius (look at the buzz it is getting) or if it is just plain tacky and distasteful.
Did it work? Well...

It’s news about media convergence like this that I LOVE to hear:
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is in talks with Sky to allow PSP owners to download Sky content such as Lost and 24 onto their handheld devices.
See, who says that Sony hates the European market? If this...

It’s news about media convergence like this that I LOVE to hear:
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is in talks with Sky to allow PSP owners to download Sky content such as Lost and 24 onto their handheld devices.
See, who says that Sony hates the European market? If this...

Portagame.com has always had a soft spot in my heart. In the early days, I poured my heart and soul into this site and built it up to be a fairly successful portal for the portable gaming world. I loved to blog about new hardware, and loved to search for news related to my favorite [...]

Portagame.com has always had a soft spot in my heart. In the early days, I poured my heart and soul into this site and built it up to be a fairly successful portal for the portable gaming world. I loved to blog about new hardware, and loved to search for news related to my favorite [...]

I was looking around teh good ol’ trusty internets to see about breathing some life into Portagame. I really don’t have the bandwidth (meaning personal time–I have a job to keep and a family to feed, and a wife who yells at me for being on the computer too much. sob.) to do game...

This one’s a slightly longer show, which has been delayed in file malfunction hell for a while. We didn’t want to give up on it, though, so here it is, finally – our DunDraCon 2009 show. We’ll get back into our twice-monthly show pattern...

We’re getting caught up after some computer issues and work related delays, but we’re back on track, so here’s the first of two refugee shows from 2008. Expect an ad or two this show – you have been warned. Some highlights we managed to...

Regular OgreCave contributor Lee Valentine has provided us with his evaluations of two varieties of the abstract strategy game Blokus. First, there’s the original Blokus game, for anyone who hasn’t had a taste of it yet. Then Lee runs Blokus World Tour through the motions and reports...

Even though I’ve barely dipped my toe into the racing action of Formula D (recommended in the OgreCave Christmas Gift Guide 2008, I’m looking forward to Asmodée’s upcoming Sebring/Chicago East Park Tracks expansion due next month. If you’re like me, and can’t...

LivingDice has the story, and as we suspected, more wild maneuvering is going on around ownership of Gen Con. As Gen Con LLC continues toward having its reorganization plan approved and creditors reassurred, the same Gen Con Acquisition Group that seemed to be making a takeover attempt of the...

As promised, GAMA announced its new Executive Director today. John Ward, a retired army officer with over 23 years military experience, replaces Anthony Gallela, who has moved on to become the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Bucephalus Games. Ward comes most recently from a criminal...

That’s right - fantasy author and occasional gamer Terry Pratchett has been knighted for his work in literature. Dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s since last year, Sir Terry is the author of the immensely popular Discworld books - if you haven’t heard of them, you just...

In case you have some downtime this Christmas - waiting around for the holiday feasting to begin, perhaps - we’ve got a quick review to keep you entertained for a bit. Demian has slid through Toboggans of Doom by Bucephalus Games, and provided us with his impressions on the slightly strange...

Now that Christmas is just a few days away, you’re either all set for gift giving, or just about to panic. Fear not - the Cave dwellers have one more list of gift suggestions for you, and this time none of them require shipping. Therefore, we wrap up (*ahem*) our eighth annual holiday guide...

‘Tis the season to resolve one’s differences, it seems. Scrabulous, an online clone of the classic word game Scrabble, was created by two brothers in India and went on to become tremendously popular on Facebook. (Why the brothers thought they had the right to do this, I have no idea.)...

Goodman Games has reminded us that the end of the year, December 31, is also the end of their 3.5 product sales. If you want any of those Dungeon Crawl Classics that you’re missing, you have two weeks left to get them direct from the source - in print at 50% off, or PDF for [...]

Despite the unusually heavy pressures of the holiday season this year (just speaking for myself here - jury duty stinks), the Cave dwellers have continued OgreCave’s annual gift list with due diligence. Part three of our eighth annual recommendations list, the OgreCave Christmas Gift Guide...

We’ve got a new review up today on the first expansion for Red Juggernaut’s Battue - the boardgame nominated for an Origins Award and an Ogre’s Choice Award last year. Lee’s given us his thoughts on the expansion, Battue: Walls of Tarsos, which adds complexity to the game,...

The newest take on Talisman - the Revised Fourth Edition - has arrived today, so look for it in your local stores or grab it directly from the FFG site. To me, the most interesting news here is the olive branch Fantasy Flight is extending (well, selling, actually) to gamers who picked up the...

This month’s free game from Invisible City is Space Monster, a mostly cooperative game pitting the players against the horrible beast terrorizing Deep Space Outpost 233-B. I say mostly cooperative because it’s always an option to race for the lone escape pod, leaving everyone else to...

As night approaches, be wary - the Day of the Ninja is in full effect, and silent death lurks around every corner (and in today’s graphic). However, to celebrate the occasion, and to distract said assassins when they come for you, we’ve put together a group of products we like to call...

Watch yourself today - you never know when they’ll strike. We’ll have a little something to honor the sneaky fellows later today (they’ve already begun their assault, as you can see), but in the meantime, stay on your toes. The Day of the Ninja is nigh!

Just like back in August, Wizards of the Coast has laid off employees today. Rumors are still swirling about the number of employees affected, though around 24 seems the prevailing estimate. According to a post at ENWorld by Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens, today’s layoffs include the following:...

Still a significant publisher in tabletop gaming, Mongoose Publishing has just given its fans a status update in the form of its annual State of the Mongoose report (also copied below). Points of interest include plans for Hammers Slammers, a full color Traveller-powered game based on David...

The turkey and stuffing may not even be on the table yet, but the Cave dwellers have been hard at work to make sure you’re ready for the holiday shopping season. To that end, we present part one of our eighth annual recommendations list, the OgreCave Christmas Gift Guide 2008. This first...

Those of you who’ve been following the comments of the Gen Con sale story already know, but it’s worth repeating in the main news feed: according to Adrian Swartout, President of Gen Con LLC, the “Gen Con Acquisition Group” that filed a letter of intent to buy Gen Con -...

Now in its second year, Paizo Publishing is firing up its RPG Superstar contest again. Last time, the multi-round contest asked budding game authors to submit progressively longer and more elaborate RPG projects, eventually whittling 32 selected entrants down to a final four and their competing...

LivingDice.com tells us that activity continues on the Gen Con front: a letter of intent for purchase of the assets of Gen Con LLC, currently undergoing Chapter 11 restructuring, was filed last Thursday with the bankruptcy court. The letter names a “Gen Con Acquisition Group” as the...

File under the Revisit and Upgrade category: Steve Jackson Games is updating one of their older titles, Frag. The updated version, Frag: Gold Edition, due out in February ‘09, will boast a two-sided solid gameboard, plastic figures instead of cardstock, dry-erasable character cards, plenty...

In the latest BattleLore Designer Update over on Fantasy Flight’s website, FFG’s Jason Steinhurst had this to say:
Yes, the Heroes expansion does exist, and at the present time, it is right in the midst of the development process. That means it’s currently in the middle of...

Just since our story yesterday on the continuing WizKids closure situation, it was pointed out that another hat was thrown into the ring for picking up the pieces. Catalyst Game Labs has made an offer to Topps to acquire HeroClix, Pirates, BattleTech/MechWarrior, and Shadowrun. Catalyst’s...

Its website is little more than a placeholder so far, but Piñata Games intends to be the new owner of HeroClix. As one of the most notable game lines left up in the air by Topps deciding to close WizKids, it was only a matter of time before someone made a play for it. Founded [...]

This year, the home of the free online Chronicles of Arborell gamebooks is hosting a competition to encourage new authors. All the entries are in, and readers are now encouraged to take a look and vote for their favorites. The adventures begin here. Take a look, put in your votes, and think [...]

It isn’t often that we link to an AOL feature article, but their list of the top 20 Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks is somewhat entertaining. We lend even more credence to the list due to the author thanking Gamebooks.org, a site created and run by OgreCave’s longtime staff member...

Finally, something optimistic to post about. LivingDice.com has the news - Lucasfilm has dropped the lawsuit against GenCon, per the dismissal notice filed with the courts earlier today. Naturally, the hope is that things will get sorted out in bankruptcy proceedings, allowing all parties to...

The season of cutting back is fully underway. We hadn’t mentioned the Mattel layoffs yet, so if you hadn’t heard, now you know. In addition, our sources say that Upper Deck has just had more layoffs, and this round is more severe than the company’s cutbacks in early May. If...

Despite yesterday’s news that WizKids will be closing down, the concern some have expressed over the future of Shadowrun and Classic Battletech licenses is apparently unnecessary. Catalyst Game Labs, which licenses the two game properties from WizKids, posted the following announcement on...

So yeah - Topps is formally exiting the hobby games market and terminating all WK product lines, or what’s left of them anyway. The predictable noises are being made about changing economic times and etc., but one wonders whether the sports trading card business is really that much better...

Since it was recorded just a few days before Halloween, the latest episode of the OgreCave Audio Report naturally focuses on - miniatures? Yep, Mike and I muse on the recent D&D Miniatures news, and on the sorts of miniatures games a cross-training gamer should have on hand. Then we put a...

In this Halloween-ish episode, miniatures seem to dominate our thoughts. At (2:45), we talk about the recent news that D&D Miniatures will be less randomized and no longer support the skirmish combat game. We discuss what this means for gamers, and for...

You’ve seen his name floating around the industry for years now, at companies like TSR and Wizards of the Coast, to recent ventures like The Game Mechanics and Super Genius Games, and even in Kobold Quarterly - the man, the myth, the Stan! From Star Wars and Ravenloft to d20 Modern and Call...

Apparently the recent decision by the Christian Children’s Fund to refuse $17,000 from a GenCon charity auction has raised enough of an uproar that an explanation is being offered (to both the Escapist and directly via email to concerned gamers). According to Cheri Dahl, VP of International...

Hey again, I haven't posted anything in years ?I've been too busy working on my game studio, Powerful Robot Games. And I'm enjoying it a lot. So, I've been pretty much outside from the ludology/game studies field since I completed...

Well, it's not exactly news. I haven't updated this blog in years but, somehow, I never wrote a last post. So, here it is. It was fun while it lasted. And no, I'm not blogging about games in Spanish neither....

When I created Ludology.org back in 2001, there weren't almost no online resources for people interested in undertanding videogames from a critical point of view, bridging the game industry and the academia. Things have changed since then (boy, if the...

I'm on the road again.On Monday, March 23rd, I'll be giving a talk in Seville, Spain, as part of the Zemos98 festival.On Saturday, March 28th, it'll be turn for Porto Alegre, Brazil, where I'll be giving a talk as part...

I'm very happy to announce the launch of "Path of the Jedi", a new online game based on the Clone Wars TV series now available on Cartoon Network. It's a platform game where you play the role of Ahsoka, a...

Yesterday, the signs simply read ?I am a man?. When somebody has something to say, he writes it on a sign. And he carries it very high, so everybody can read it. It must be a clear message, so everybody...

Dolls shaped after political figures at not new (I've written about this before). These versions of the current Presidential candidates in Cabbage Patch form are certainly cute (note: the original dolls, now 25 years old, were first manufactured by Coleco,...

Sometime designers create useful things. Sometimes they create beautiful things. This Japanese "digital" clock (tuttuki bako) literally allows you to stick your finger into the videogame world. If there's justice in this world, every human should get one of these....

I'm happy to launch Powerful Robot's new political game. It's called Debate Night and allows you to go face to face with McCain on the debate arena. It combines two familiar gameplays (Zuma meets Bejeweled) so you can refute McCain's...

In addition to my talks in Sao Carlos, I'll be giving a talk this Thursday in Sao Paulo at FILE, the Brazilian Digital Arts Festival. I've been looking forward to visiting the festival for years now, so it's an incredible...

In addition to my talk and one-day course at the Federal University of Sao Carlos (Monday and Tuesday, respectively) it's likely that I'll be giving another lecture, this time in Sao Paulo, on Thursday night. Additionally, a lot of people...

I'll be in Sao Paulo by the end of this month. Sao Paulo = Brazil + Great Japanese Food (it doesn't get better than that).I'm invited by the Federal University of Sao Carlos, and I'll be giving a lecture on...

The dates and place for the DiGRA 2009 conference have been set. It'll take place at Brunel University (West London), from August 31st - September 4th. The CFP is not out yet, but you should at least mark your calendars.

In 2003, it was the year of the first official videogame for a US Presidential campaign. It was called the Dean For Iowa Game. We developed that game in about two weeks (I can't think we could do that again...

Ludology and Narratology became the DC versus Marvel, Beatles vs Rolling Stones, Pepsi versus Coke of game studies. I'm fine with it. I guess it helps young people (hopefully young designers) to get a stand on videogames and even pump...

What can I say? I'm happy! In a couple of weeks I'll be attending Casual Connect in Seattle. Even though I'll probably be working non-stop, I was hoping to spend a couple of hours at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction...

Peggle is such a wonderful game. Actually, it's the reason why my iPod's battery is almost depleted. I just spent a good few minutes reading a "behind the scenes" or "postmortem" of this game, created by PopCap. It's written in...

Blik decals are a great way to mod your walls. I bought the Space Invaders set last year and I was thrilled at the results. Now, they released these colorful Nintendo themed decals. They are pricy (75 bucks for a...

Oh, the pleasures of 19th century literature... Well, at least of the juicy parts of it. From Japan, with love, comes the slapping contest game. Simple and beautiful. It's called Rose&Camellia . There's even a sequel out now (check it...

It's hard to overstate how f** up Argentinean politics is. Let me just say that Italian and Mexican politicians seem like panda cubs next to Argentinean ones. So, I'm not even going to try to explain the current crisis "across...

We just launched the 3rd Uruguayan Game Dev Contest, organized by Ingenio (business incubator) and ProAnima (Animation and Game Dev cluster). Everybody residing in Uruguay can participate (sorry Shigeru!) and we'll be announcing some cool prizes really soon. The deadline...

Probably everybody and their dead uncle knows already about this toy blog that hails from Singapore but, hey, I didn't know about it until Sofía sent me the link. So, enjoy. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying Buenos Aires with Alejandro Piscitelli and...

The [Player] Conference will take place on August 26th-29th at ITU (for those of you who have no idea what ITU is, that's where the Center for Computer Games Research is located, in Copenhagen, Denmark). The call for papers is...

Everybody knows that Nazis are the ultimate bad guys. That's why it sucked so much that the latest Indiana Jones had to trade them for Commies. Ok, I know, it makes sense: Harrison Ford is older so the story had...

Miyamoto was in New York for the launch of Wii Fit and it seems that he gave quite many interviews. Here's a link to the one in the New York Times. It's more like a portrait than an actual interview,...

I had a great time at the Homo Ludens Ludens exhibit and conference at Laboral, in Gijón, Spain. For those of you who can understand Spanish (or should I say Spanish with an Uruguayan accent), I did a short report...

The Sims is now 8 years old and the New York Times has an interesting review of the series. There was a time when no serious newspaper would write about videogames. Now the New York Times reviews The Sims as...

Before you get too excited, I must warn you that this product does not exist. It was part of ThinkGeek's April Fools fake products. But that doesn't mean that we could secretly wish we had one in every door, right?

I'm happy to report that a new videogame textbook is out! It's called Understanding Videogames and it's written by my former colleagues from ITU Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith, and Susana Pajares Tosca. Over the last few years I witnessed...

Here's a unique chance to learn from two of today's most talented media artists. There's an open call for projects at MediaLab-Prado in Madrid. It's an advanced workshop where you'll get the chance to work with, among others, Alvaro Cassinelli...

Ok, we all know that we can't trust tabloids. And of course, I can't trust a tabloid that manipulates images for journalistic purposes. And nobody should trust any publication that sucks at photoshop like this. But this is too much:...

Some students figured out a way to use the Wii balance board to navigate Google Earth.It looks pretty cool, and while more work may be needed, if you happen to have a setup like they do, it might be fun to try.
Not too shabby and I'm sure one of the first of many balance board hacks. ...

Some students figured out a way to use the Wii balance board to navigate Google Earth.It looks pretty cool, and while more work may be needed, if you happen to have a setup like they do, it might be fun to try.
Not too shabby and I'm sure one of the first of many balance board hacks. ...

Some students figured out a way to use the Wii balance board to navigate Google Earth.It looks pretty cool, and while more work may be needed, if you happen to have a setup like they do, it might be fun to try.
Not too shabby and I'm sure one of the first of many balance board hacks. ...

For a full recap of the announcements, check out the Nintendo E3 liveblog done by Gizmodo. Some of the highlights:One of the first announcements had to do with some games - how does a snowboarding game using the Wii fit sound?

For a full recap of the announcements, check out the Nintendo E3 liveblog done by Gizmodo. Some of the highlights:One of the first announcements had to do with some games - how does a snowboarding game using the Wii fit sound?

There were a bunch of announcements from Sony recently at E3.One of the most impressive is a movie and TV show download service, however we are hearing reports that it won't be for everyone.Sites like Edge Online and the Register are reporting that movie downloads will not be available in Europe...

There were a bunch of announcements from Sony recently at E3.One of the most impressive is a movie and TV show download service, however we are hearing reports that it won't be for everyone.Sites like Edge Online and the Register are reporting that movie downloads will not be available in Europe...

Are you getting tired of gaming on the DS?Ok so maybe you aren't. But that doesn't mean you couldn't try this hack to turn your DS into something other than a handheld game console.It actually looks pretty cool. All you need is a flash card, a flash card reader attached to your...

Are you getting tired of gaming on the DS?Ok so maybe you aren't. But that doesn't mean you couldn't try this hack to turn your DS into something other than a handheld game console.It actually looks pretty cool. All you need is a flash card, a flash card reader attached to your...

MTV Multiplayer recently reported thatconnectivity between the 360 and DS almost happened with Viva Pinata.The question was posed to Justin Cook, designer of the game and he said:"We got it to work, but it was too late in the development cycle,"
So it was too late for the latest version of...

MTV Multiplayer recently reported thatconnectivity between the 360 and DS almost happened with Viva Pinata.The question was posed to Justin Cook, designer of the game and he said:"We got it to work, but it was too late in the development cycle,"
So it was too late for the latest version of...

Boingboing has an excellent summary on 25 years of "exergaming."from the Atari Joyboard released way back in 1982: to the recently released Wii Fit:And everything in between.Now, we at CC remember a lot of these, from the Power Pad for the Nintendo, and the very cool Power Glove, also for the NES.

Boingboing has an excellent summary on 25 years of "exergaming."from the Atari Joyboard released way back in 1982: to the recently released Wii Fit:And everything in between.Now, we at CC remember a lot of these, from the Power Pad for the Nintendo, and the very cool Power Glove, also for the NES.

Back in May, a federal jury ruled in favor of Anascape, an East Texas gaming company, who claimed that Nintendo had infringed on one of their patents while designing its Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube controllers. Anascape...

Back in May, a federal jury ruled in favor of Anascape, an East Texas gaming company, who claimed that Nintendo had infringed on one of their patents while designing its Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube controllers. Anascape...

Back in May, a federal jury ruled in favor of Anascape, an East Texas gaming company, who claimed that Nintendo had infringed on one of their patents while designing its Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube controllers. Anascape...

Apparently the all mighty Spielberg is going to get into Wii gaming. Sure he advised on the development of the Medal of Honor series, but this is a fully developed game. He had input into everything from character development to scenery.

Apparently the all mighty Spielberg is going to get into Wii gaming. Sure he advised on the development of the Medal of Honor series, but this is a fully developed game. He had input into everything from character development to scenery.

Xbox 360™ just keeps getting more entertaining. Microsoft Corp. today announced that TV series and movies from A&E Network, ADV Films, National Geographic and TotalVid.com will add to the more than 1,500 hours of downloadable entertainment content already available on Xbox LIVE® in...

Late last night, with just over 8 hours to go before Xbox Live goes down for a monster 14 hours of maintenance, Microsoft and Bethesda were pleased to announce that the highly anticipated expansion to the 2006 game of the year The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion...

According to the [url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/microsoft-keeps-quiet-on-xbox-elite/2007/03/26/1174761330614.html]Sydney Morning Herald website[/url], Microsoft Australia have confirmed that they will make a "major announcement" this wednesday, fueling speculation that they are to unveil a...

As the world closes in, you sit alone in a dark room, sweaty and tense, your eyes unwavering from the events unspooling on the monitor. Animatronic pizza creatures are clawing at the door. Shelter dwellers demand answers after months of forced breeding, papal collusion, and suspected...

This week we guess at how life might begin, and are shown many ways it might end. Here, in the middle, is a podcast. Spaff evolves while showing off Gang Beasts at Evo, Chris weighs the value of a new life versus a long and celebrated one after some startling developments in his Fallout Shelter,...

Join us on an accidental tour of our own history of first person shooting, from Doom to the new game that is also just called Doom. We also play a fan-made mod sequel to Portal 2, discuss Activision's baffling foray into first party total conversion modding with the upcoming Call of Duty Zombies...

Unlike some, we live in a bountiful place. A place where the stars stretch out before you, full of life and endless, a place where soccer is played by not just Mario but glowey demons and even cars, a place where every gun is unique even if that is the last thing you want. We live there so enjoy...

You strap on your VR headset and log on to the terminal. It's a Windows 95 system: you know this. You rifle through dozens of unsorted video clips revealing a fractured prophecy of inevitable robot domination. Sinister, shadowy figures dance and leap in the periphery of your vision. You glance...

After years away, we found ourselves this week trapped in surreal spaces filled with otherworldly lights and sounds, dodging indistinct figures that triggered sensory responses unlike any offered in the normal world. We wore virtual reality headsets, and we went to E3.

Abandoned and alone, Chris and Nick hunker down in the studio while everyone else braves the harsh wastelands of E3. Join us for an intimate and lively chat about social simulation, our fantasies of a historical New York city builder, video game sweaters, our inevitable AI-dominated future, and...

Terraforming is complete. The fences are placed. Administrative staff is happy, buzzing away in their newly-zoned facility. This is it. This one will be perfect. But no, work halts: An error message. The face on your screen is not one you recognize. It's definitely not Dr. Wright. "Ah ahh ahh."...

Danielle continues to tear through every major release thrown her way, Spaff disappears into a brutal world of trial-by-drum-and-bass, Chris wishes he would suddenly lose control of parts of his body at random in group situations, and Jake thinks he has played a video game once in his life, but...

What did we all bring for show and tell this week? Danielle explores a psychedelic outdoor world and misses her favorite book, Chris re-visits his first encounter with Star Wars, while Spaff performs one of the most amazing feats ever attempted in gaming and finds himself $70 poorer as a result....

Whether you're a modder, a hat baron, or a Greek citizen, it has been a rough week on the financial front. In a time when anyone with an idea can seemingly throw entire economies into turmoil, maybe it's our turn. Join us as we put on our Unusual Financial Prognosticator hats and dig into the...

This week everybody gets a window into Sean and Danielle's Bloodborne-consumed lives, everybody is convinced by Spaff to play an "RPG whodunnit roguelike," and while only Danielle played "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture," everybody else was quite taken with her description of the experience.

Before Owen Wilson's nose was attached, this world was a lot for Old Granny Dreamcast to take in. That newfangled headgear you're supposed to be wearing now. Games on telephones. The instruments everyone carried around a couple years ago seemed to be coming back. "Be a rock star," said one new...

Imagine your dream LAN. Sit back and really picture it. If your dream LAN is one where the snacks are artisanal, the soda water is gently flavored, and the wifi's always free, you may be a dad, but who cares with a ping this low?

Hey, does that ladder have your blood echoes? Just checking. By the way, that reminds me of a dream I had. I think it was about cyborgs. Or lesbian dinosaur cyborgs. There were definitely cyborgs. But look?we all serve at the pleasure of the readers. Am I right or am I right?

This week, one of us is a murderer... But who? Is it Chris, who spent the week maximizing the traffic flow in his Cities: Skyline city, a city so perfect no one wanted to live there? Or could the murderer be Danielle, the one who spent the week actually murdering a bunch of people -- fictionally...

Those bifocals you threw away and those books you burned all those years ago are remembered fondly this week, as we celebrate our 200th episode with a fully stocked six pack of hosts. Join Chris, Jake, Nick, Steve, Sean, and Danielle for a discussion of Valve's VR announcements, the life of...

The old becomes new, in a pod cast by two,
as a title once lost becomes found.
Chris and Jake plunge in to the new Darkest Dungeon,
and Besiege delights as it confounds.
Sean joins Chris and Jake before the ad break,
and Gex lore is run into the ground.

This week on Idle Thumbs we talk about our crippling addiction to Destiny, our experiences in a recent AAA first person zombie survival game, and why Far Cry 2 might not be that great after all. What happened to us? We were joined by special guest Justin McElroy of Polygon and the My Brother, My...

Jake goes back in time with Grim Fandango Remastered, Nick makes sure the trains run on time in Mini Metro, Danielle moves time forward in controlled and user-selected increments in Majora's Mask 3D, and Chris talks about a dead guy coming to life, limbs flailing, cursing at everyone. Somewhere,...

The match is about to start, the anticipation so thick you can see it in the air. Dust2, of course. You strap on your MicroSoft HoloLens (Pimple edition, bought new) and scan the crowded auditorium. Aimbots found: Six. Wallhacks: Eighteen. You're not sure why you even came. You put the device...

It's road trip week. Buckle your torn-off seat belt, and put the Elijah Wood Flipper movie on the in-van VCR because we're going to Disney World. Not responsible for any injuries of any kind including death.

You've delved too deep below the sea, to a time before human memory. A voice from your past won't stop echoing in your head, telling you lies, telling you about space, telling you things you've heard so many times before.

We ring out the old, and ring in the new, with what may be the oldest conversation in the existence of our medium: What is the best video game of all time? Not the greatest, mind you, but the best. See you in 2015! (Thanks to Matter magazine for sending us on this quest as part of their video...

It is the season of giving gifts, unless you are Sean Vanaman, who only seems to receive gifs. Danielle and Chris get deeper into Dragon Age Inqusition, which mostly means Iron Bull talk. After that, it's time for a holiday mailbag trip through the digital back alleys of the competitive Smash...

Alone and in a strange place, a robot types furiously at a terminal keyboard. "dir" it writes. No response. "asdfghjk," it continues, to similar success. It glances around, looks back at the keyboard and then the screen. "load Dragon Age."

With the end of the year coming up fast, Jake and Danielle are joined by Patrick Klepek of Giant Bomb, to pull back the curtain on the deliberations and distractions involved in picking the Games of the Year, and to share some surprising travel tips the modern gamer may find useful.

Nick and Sean are transfixed by the supple, majestic fur of Far Cry 4, Chris crosses a road better than anyone in the room (but not better than his friends), and Jake stares at a real brain on a real plate.

It is time to give thanks. Join us in giving thanks for inexpensive content updates, for the Super Smash Bros. metagame, for mobile free-to-play experiences, for elephant slaughter, for knowing one's own gaming limits, for blockbuster pseudo-reboots, and for Chris and Sean arguing about basically...

Beppo's Hole is not a place one wants to spend very much time (it's kind of a rollicking mess) but here we all are so let's make the best of it. In Beppo's Hole, Danielle catches the scent of Far Cry 4 but can't stay and truly enjoy it until later. In Beppo's Hole, Chris serves himself up the...

This week the 90s are back, but what if they came back wrong? Holiday reviewing season has Danielle in its grasp, but that may mean she has just been playing a ton of upcoming Nintendo and Sega games. That and Advanced Warfare. As the old saying goes, "Behind every Dorito is a gross, super-ripped...

As you get older you begin to wonder if the culture has changed, or you have changed. Are you in a place now where you're just unreachable by marketing, not by force but because you are drifting out of sync with the cultural consciousness? Last time you stuck your head up and really looked around...

A lot of aliens were defeated this week, but at what cost? Danielle finally reaches the end of Alien: Isolation, having given the game a complete day of her life. In Beyond Earth, Jake, Chris, and Nick have shot some giant worms and roving green animals, but aren't sure what that means, or why...

TheXUG.com will undergo some serious upgrading on Monday, switching to new servers as well as implementing a new forum. Thus the site will be down from Sunday 23:59 CET to Monday 23:59 CET.It's about time to get more friends, more features and more connectivity. As many in here already knows,...

TheXUG.com will undergo some serious upgrading on Monday, switching to new servers as well as implementing a new forum. Thus the site will be down from Sunday 23:59 CET to Monday 23:59 CET.It's about time to get more friends, more features and more connectivity. As many in here already knows,...

After sending long-time member Walshy out in the dark, rumours ran rampant throughout the Halo 3 community about who Final Boss would pick up as a replacement.The Real Madrid of Halo couldn't be arsed to wait for better times or that the players got good enough in the game, they...

After sending long-time member Walshy out in the dark, rumours ran rampant throughout the Halo 3 community about who Final Boss would pick up as a replacement.The Real Madrid of Halo couldn't be arsed to wait for better times or that the players got good enough in the game, they...

Yesterday MLG's Commissioner, John Nelson, sent shockwaves through the Halo 3-community as he announced that Final Boss had dropped Walshy from their roster. Apart from the OGRE-twins, Dave 'Walshy' Walsh is one of the best (and most succesful) Halo-players to ever touch the XboX-joypad. Being...

Yesterday MLG's Commissioner, John Nelson, sent shockwaves through the Halo 3-community as he announced that Final Boss had dropped Walshy from their roster. Apart from the OGRE-twins, Dave 'Walshy' Walsh is one of the best (and most succesful) Halo-players to ever touch the XboX-joypad. Being...

Now this is a story all about how, MLGPro turned the beat up and made me bow. And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there and I'll hook you up with a rofltime now and here!I got to admit it, I'm a sucker for the Fresh Prince,...

Now this is a story all about how, MLGPro turned the beat up and made me bow. And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there and I'll hook you up with a rofltime now and here!I got to admit it, I'm a sucker for the Fresh Prince,...

Microsoft will be giving back some of the green ones in a new we love people who creates content for us -stunt. XNA Code Creators Club will be offering paying members the possibility to be paid for their games. The system is quite simple. Game-developers in XNA will be...

Microsoft will be giving back some of the green ones in a new we love people who creates content for us -stunt. XNA Code Creators Club will be offering paying members the possibility to be paid for their games. The system is quite simple. Game-developers in XNA will be...

Planned to be released in early October, Fable 2 is the latest title from Peter Molyneux. Loved for his fantastic games in the past, and hated for his hyped titles that couldn't live up to people's expectations in recent times, Molyneux promises that Fable 2 is going to be his...

Planned to be released in early October, Fable 2 is the latest title from Peter Molyneux. Loved for his fantastic games in the past, and hated for his hyped titles that couldn't live up to people's expectations in recent times, Molyneux promises that Fable 2 is going to be his...

Berlin Allianz faded away as they lost four out of five possible submatches against San Francisco OPTX, while Birmingham Salvo and Carolina Core put on a magnificent show.In the first Semi-final of the night, Berlin Allianz proved to be no match for OPTX, as the Americans won the match with...

Berlin Allianz faded away as they lost four out of five possible submatches against San Francisco OPTX, while Birmingham Salvo and Carolina Core put on a magnificent show.In the first Semi-final of the night, Berlin Allianz proved to be no match for OPTX, as the Americans won the match with...

Microsoft just put out a major update to their release-dates, and it seems like October and November is going to be saving-months for me; or heavy XboX-action-months atleast. Fallout 3 is coming out on October 7th, Fable 2 is coming out two weeks later on the 21st and...

Microsoft just put out a major update to their release-dates, and it seems like October and November is going to be saving-months for me; or heavy XboX-action-months atleast. Fallout 3 is coming out on October 7th, Fable 2 is coming out two weeks later on the 21st and...

The nice folks over at Kotaku.com were ever-present at the E3, gathering as much information as they possibly could. Now, they didn't only drink and party (http://kotaku.com/5025216/kotakus-e3-party-great-success), they were actually working too.That has resulted in three video-interviews with...

The nice folks over at Kotaku.com were ever-present at the E3, gathering as much information as they possibly could. Now, they didn't only drink and party (http://kotaku.com/5025216/kotakus-e3-party-great-success), they were actually working too.That has resulted in three video-interviews with...

If you haven't checked out Fable 2 yet, there is now more reasons to do it. The first game was not only a good RPG, it was a fantastic RPG, and showed the huge potential that the consoles have in that genre. The successor takes place 500 years after the...

For those Halo-players who have lived under a rock the last month, Triggers Down are the new (and winning) kids on the block. As the team won at MLG Orlando, they became the 4th team ever to take down a Halo championship in MLG. The story of MLG Orlando is...

For those Halo-players who have lived under a rock the last month, Triggers Down are the new (and winning) kids on the block. As the team won at MLG Orlando, they became the 4th team ever to take down a Halo championship in MLG. The story of MLG Orlando is...

Tonight, there is going to be two winners and two losers in The Championship Gaming Series. The Semi-finals are going to be played, and it is USA vs. Europe; Berlin Allianz vs. San Francisco OPTX and Birmingham Salvo vs. Carolina Core.One thing is 100% sure going into the matches tonight;...

Tonight, there is going to be two winners and two losers in The Championship Gaming Series. The Semi-finals are going to be played, and it is USA vs. Europe; Berlin Allianz vs. San Francisco OPTX and Birmingham Salvo vs. Carolina Core.One thing is 100% sure going into the matches tonight;...

Everybody who has a XboX 360 and loved the original Halo-games, were disappointed that Bungie had to cancel their new game . While it has already been rumoured to in fact be a fourth game in hte Halo-franchise, so now they guessing-games have begun. Over at RockPaperShotgun, there is...

Everybody who has a XboX 360 and loved the original Halo-games, were disappointed that Bungie had to cancel their new game . While it has already been rumoured to in fact be a fourth game in hte Halo-franchise, so now they guessing-games have begun. Over at RockPaperShotgun, there is...

If Kotaku.com is to believe, then Microsoft can start congratulating themselves, as the XboX 360 has finally had a profitable year. According to the story (http://kotaku.com/5026559/xbox-division-finally-reports-profitable-year) , MS has made $426,000,000 in the financial year 07-08. That is an...

If Kotaku.com is to believe, then Microsoft can start congratulating themselves, as the XboX 360 has finally had a profitable year. According to the story (http://kotaku.com/5026559/xbox-division-finally-reports-profitable-year) , MS has made $426,000,000 in the financial year 07-08. That is an...

Before consulting the porno-industry (http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/07/30/porn_dvd/) , Microsoft decided to include the HD-DVD as the highdefinition-drive in XboX 360. Let's just say that it was a bad idea. As HD-DVD lost the format-war to Sony's Blueray, the XboX-ownwers were pretty much...

Before consulting the porno-industry (http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/07/30/porn_dvd/) , Microsoft decided to include the HD-DVD as the highdefinition-drive in XboX 360. Let's just say that it was a bad idea. As HD-DVD lost the format-war to Sony's Blueray, the XboX-ownwers were pretty much...

Halo 3 is a growing franchise, both in and out of the States, and now the European eSport-giant Turtle Entertaintment acknowledges the growing community, as they pick up console-gaming and Halo 3 for their annual eSport-awards.For a few years already, eSports has not been confined to the PC any...

After the first two Quarter-finals were played out two days a go, it was time for the last two. Carolina Core went up against the Asian champions from Wuhan Dragons, while Birmingham Salvo faced Mexico City Furia.Just like in Berlin Allianz' Quarter-final, yesterday evening's games seemed to be...

The first two Quarter-finals in the CGS World Finals have been played, and much to everybody's surprise, the winners of the American regional finals, Dallas Venom, has been eliminated. San Francisco OPTX created the final blow to Venom, as their CS:S-team tore the Venom-team apart - thus...

Bungie has been teasing their fans for months, as they continiously have hinted for a new title - which isn't supposed to be a Halo game. The game was supposed to premiere on the E3 fair, but that has been put on full hold due to their publisher.For more info,...

Regroup Esports, Europe's leading electronic sports and online gaming company, has rebranded to become Esport Nation A/S while its new corporate site is now known as ESNation.com as of today. Regroup's digital portfolio includes popular gaming community sites such as the Dotaportal.com,...

It's E3 time, and that means that we get a virtual goodiebag from all the game developers. Yesterday was no exception as Microsoft held their eagerly awaited press conference. If you like Final Fantasy, Gears of War or Portal you might want to peek inside.

In the past weekend, the Championship Gaming Series hosted their Individual World Championships for Dead or Alive (male and female), CounterStrike:Source, FIFA 2008 and Forza 2. The event is now concluded and you can find the results inside!

Rumours have been floating around for quite some time that Microsoft was going to lower their prices on the XboX 360. Now it has happened, as the original XboX 360 with 20GB storage has been dropped from $349 to $299 (US). At the same time, Microsoft has added a new...

For those Halo 3-fans that thought Major League Gaming's stop in Orlando would be yet another Str8 Rippin-, Carbon- or Final Boss-victory, this weekend was some kind of eyeopener. By the Winner Bracket Final, all three teams had exited the upper ranks of the tournament. More details inside!

Major League Gaming's third stop on the 2008 Pro Circuit is going down this weekend in Orlando, Florida. With $93,000 in prizemoney, the action will be hot as ever, as the teams are trying to take grab a ticket to the National Championships.The tournaments in Halo 3, Gears of War...

EchoPlayer.com expires on the 9th October and I’m finally leaving that domain name behind. However, for those of you who have stumbled across this site in its past 5 years of life, I’m continuing it through the aptly named An Extra Life. It’s currently in development and...

Although perhaps not the best example of gaming’s social acceptance, it is quite telling that neither MySpace nor Facebook - the two largest social networking sites on the web - currently feature a designated area for you to input your “Favourite Games”.
You can tell the...

The recent 3.70 firmware update for the PSP has brought along the option of official custom themes for the device.
Available to download from the UK PlayStation site, the majority are related to a certain game and are quite cumbersome to use - except the excellent Cookies theme (I’ll...

Following the previous nostalgia-tinged post, I thought I’d now take a look at Destroy All Humans, as it too features a prominent and memorable setting - a humorous portrayal of 1950’s USA. Again, this is a past review of mine, at the time of the game’s release. A sequel has...

Writing about the joy of exploring Rapture in Bioshock brought back fond memories of my time exploring another distinctive and rich world - Hillys, in the seminal Beyond Good & Evil. For old time’s sake here’s a look at a review I wrote way back when (slightly tarted-up). If you...

Early next year Sony is set to release PlayTV in certain PAL territories (including the UK, thankfully), allowing people to watch and record digital television on their PS3 through a combined TV tuner and personal video recorder.
Although Freeview players are becoming cheaper and more...

Yakuza 3 confirmed for PS3. Sadly it’s currently Japan only, like no.2.
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction dated. October in USA, November over here.
A shooting game with half a million guns? A preview of Borderlands.
New controller colours for Xbox 360. Pink...

Although staying abreast of all the happenings in the gaming world is interesting and exciting, it’s also quite laborious at times. Unless you have something particularly noteworthy to report, you often end up recycling what everyone else has already said - with the majority of it being...

After E3 2007’s showing of Killzone 2, my interest in the game has grown exponentially. Visually it was actually pretty close to the pre-rendered trailer that was shown many moons ago - rivaling Crysis in many respects. Atmospherically it seems to be very strong - hopefully it won’t...

In officially the quietest launch ever, Nintendo released a new version of the GBAsp in America. Absolutely nothing changed? apart from the screen. It?s significantly brighter. And it?s backlit, not sidelit. The joy.
Also, the button which previously toggled brightness on and off now...

At Iwata?s fact filled TGS speech he also talked a bit about the upcoming WiFi service for the DS. It?s set to launch in November worldwide and Iwata said that full details will come in October.
So stay tuned for that.

Yup, today NoE announced a price cut for the NDS taking effect from the 7th of October. This coincides with the launch of 2 new DS bundles.
The console on it?s own will now cost £89.99 and the brand new pink DS with Nintendogs Dachshund version will retail for...

Sony?s PSP console has become the fastest-selling games console of all time in the UK, selling a huge 185,000 units in its first four days on sale, perhaps even more via the online markets.
High street store enjoyed an incredible weekend, grossing a whopping £33.3 million in hardware...

Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft announced the plans for the Xbox 360 launch at the Games Developer conference.
Although Microsoft did not state when the launch date will be, we were all given the much talked price and bundles. I can reveal that there will be two separate bundles available to...

The third iteration of the Game Boy Advance will hit Europe on November 4th priced at £69. It?ll come in silver, blue, pink and green colours with more faceplates coming later
Thsi seems to be the latest piece of news in what I expect to be a minor news revolution inorder to ease the...

Announced sometime ago for the PS3 and XBox 360, Resident Evil 5 is naturally set after the previous game and is already looking sumptuous. IGN reports on the latest issue of Famitsu Xbox which includes a new interview with the game?s producer Jun Takeuchi.
Most interestingly is the...

Sony has been contacting retailers and telling them how much first party PSP games are going to cost. After spending £179.99 on the value pack you will then have to spend £34.99 to buy games like Wipeout and Ridge Racer.
So, despite having to wait 6 months for launch and having...

It would seem that despite a solid E3, Microsoft are still having problems cracking the Japanese market. Famitsu did a survey of the gaming public, asking what next gen console they were most interested in. 42.2% said they prefered the Revolution, 39.8% went for the PS3 and a pathetic 18% went...

Eurogamer has a nice selection of shots from Peter Jackson?s King Kong the upcoming game based on the, naturally, upcoming movie.
Unlike the majority of film tie ins, produced by EA and the like (mainly EA), which are quite horrendous, this game is worth your attention as it?s being...

I recently discovered Mark Suster's Both Sides of the Table through a post on Fred Wilson's always excellent blog and I've been devouring the content. It's really insightful and interesting. The latest post about about What Entrepreneurs Could Learn from Chamillionaire echoes the lessons that...

I've long been an admirer of the remarkable Ada Lovelace but it wasn't until three days ago that I learned she's inspired a day of blogging about women in technology. Unfortunately the fanfic that I have been composing in my mind for the last few years is not ready for...

Perhaps because I've been spending so much time lately in lower New York and Brooklyn, I've been attracted to films set in those streets I love, and recently I watched, back-to-back, Moonstruck (1987) and Crossing Delancey (1988). I was immediately struck by both the similarities in the two films...

This Twilight/Buffy remix is awesome and super interesting, as Katie from Pixiepalace points out in her astute write-up. I haven't actually seen the movie Twilight (the three girls who would have gone to see it with me all went and saw it long before I got around to it) and...

I'll admit that last year, I didn't even know there *was* a Canada day; but as my social circle increasingly includes "out" Canadians, I'm learning more about who's Canadian (William Shatner! Peter Jennings! NEIL YOUNG), Canadian alcohol (Crown Royal, Seagram's), and days commemorating great...

Oliver Sacks talks to Jon Stewart about the fundamental impact of music on the brain. Rhythm, he says, is a purely human trait...only humans can listen and respond to music by dancing to the beat. Makes it all the more tragic that music programs and education are getting cut from...

"Among other things, Chinese officials have worried that online currencies could ultimately serve as an alternative to China's official currency, the renminbi, and have an impact on the country's financial system." --NYTimes on China's limiting virtual goods trading and sales. Wowza. It says...

NYTimes article on the suppression of information on a Wikipedia page neatly encapsulates a dilemma of democratic nations at war. A cornerstone of a free society is an unfettered press, serving the public's right to know; on the other hand, global politics is a dangerous game that sometimes...

What makes a sport popular - then not? A chat broke out on Twitter. One of those chats that tells you that Twitter can be a terrible place to chat. So let's have a go here. Boxing used to be popular. Really popular. It caught the public imagination for centuries. In the 18C there was the Fancy -...

There may be much truth in the feeling that many Terra Nova people share, that MMORPGs and the gamer community are evolving into far less interesting forms. Today was the last day for one of the best other blogs about MMORPGs, Massively. The farewells: massively.joystiq.com/ And a commentary from...

As my Pandaran reached level 100 in World of Warcraft, knowing that 10 million other people were playing alongside me, and something over 100 million accounts had been created over the decade lifetime of that influential game, I couldn?t help but think of how much I personally like some of the...

All at TN would like to welcome Nick LaLone and Bill Bainbridge on board. Many of you will already know Nick and William''s work, but for those of you who do not: Nick is a currently PhD Student in the Information Science and Technology Program at Penn State University. His work centres on the...

?Instead of saying I?m going to be best Pro Gamer I?d like to say that, especially in the eyes of the fans, I?ll work hard to be a pro gamer that always gives his all. A gamer that really enjoys and embodies the spirit of competition? Lee ?Jaedong? Jae Dong, StarCraft II Player ?The difference...

I said I?d been working on TN content. Well here is the first slice. For a long time I?ve been curious about the names people use in online spaces. This fascination grew as I began to watch eSports and saw how commentators / casters have to navigate a complex name space to make sense of the...

I for one did not want to see TerraNova fade away (after all they named a TV programe after us, right?), and I've got three blog posts on the exciting world of eSports in notpad that I'm trying to get finished. Ted has been kind enought to hand me the keys, so Arise TerraNova you live again. Ren

Terra Nova began on September 11, 2003 and maintained steady intellectual activity for a good 7 years afterwards. For about 4 years now the site has been kept alive out of a sense of good will. I think though for the good of the world it is time to let it pass. All this means is, I won't be...

greglasMarch 25, 2014 was a pretty interesting day for virtual currency and virtual reality! It seems the IRS deems mined bitcoins (& Dogecoins!) to be income. So it seems pretty clear that Linden Dollars are a "convertible" virtual currency and should count as income too. I'm assuming...

Thomas MalabyIt's been some time since I haunted the distinguished halls of TN, but after some tumultuous times that got me out of the habit of putting my working papers up on ssrn and pointing to them here (and at my own blog), I do have a piece that I wanted to share (and I'll be cross-posting...

Thomas MalabyIt's been some time since I haunted the distinguished halls of TN, but after some tumultuous times that got me out of the habit of putting my working papers up on ssrn and pointing to them here (and at my own blog), I do have a piece that I wanted to share (and I'll be cross-posting...

Dmitri WilliamsDeep in our underground hollowed-out volcanic lair, ninja scientists have developed an algorithm that I think will have a large impact on both science and commerce. We call it "Social Value." Social Value is the amount of behavior that one person generates among their friends. An...

Dmitri WilliamsClearly demarcated as blatant self-promotion: I'm happy to announce that an effort I've been working on for about 3 years in semi-stealth mode is now live. After doing big data work for the spooks in the government and running a team of social and computer scientists, a few of us...

Edward CastronovaIt's not easy being a bank. Blizzard's experiment with a real-money trading system in its game Diablo III has come to an end. It is a good thing too. By embedding real money in its service, Blizzard was vitiating any claim that D3 was separate from the real economy and therefore...

Edward CastronovaToontown is shutting its doors. (Thanks Pidge Fielder for the tip.) When gamer properties close down, the gamers rant and, understanding that no one will actually listen, move on. Toontown is a Disney property, however, filled with ordinary people. They've started numerous...

Edward CastronovaGot an interesting law article in the snail mail by Dan Burk. "Owning E-Sports: Proprietary Rights in Professional Computer Gaming." Unfortunately the digital version is behind paywalls. Man, does that seem stupid. Amazon charging $10 for a law article? It's an interesting...

greglasHi everyone, I posted here soliciting participation in the Rutgers Player-Authors survey of player UGC practices in games. We are beginning to study the results. A draft summary report of basic descriptive statistics is posted here. Please do not cite or repost this draft version, as the...

greglasHi everyone, As part of the Rutgers Player-Authors project, we're conducting a survey of industry perceptions regarding player-created content in games. If you're in the game development industry, please consider taking a few moments to share your views on player-created content. The...

Edward CastronovaSteen and Owens ground play in human evolution. Now sociologist Robert Bellah makes play not just any element of human evolution but a core element of it. From play, he believes, springs almost all culture, including the topic I steadfastly refuse to bring up on this blog because...

Edward CastronovaMicrosoft announced that it is retiring its virtual currency, Microsoft Points. This follows Facebook abandoning Facebook credits. Companies are trying to figure when and where it makes sense to have your own currency. The thing about a rewards-type currency, such as Microsoft...

Edward CastronovaA report just out from the fine folks at Playnomics confirms that much of the money spent in digital economies is spent by a fairly small share of the players. Vegas calls them "whales." Playnomics says that fewer than 1 percent of players spend any money at all in games, on...

Edward CastronovaDiablo III's real-money auction house had some potential to be a major innovation in virtual economies. Instead, it looks like the designers failed to grasp lessons of virtual money management that are now more than a decade old. Namely, make sure you have enough sinks. There's a...

Edward CastronovaWittingly or no, the folks over at Paradox Development are making an amazing scientific instrument. It's called the Clausewitz Engine. I know almost nothing about it, other than having been its victim over and over again. The Clausewitz Engine is apparently a gigantic autonomous...

Ren ReynoldsThe latest Social Change Technology podcast is out. Burcu Bakioglu interviews long time friend of the show Hector Postigo about his latest book: The Digital Rights Movement. Those that have been around a while with know Hector's foundational work on modding. You can listen to the show...

greglasI'm conducting a survey on creative play within video games. If you have 15 minutes to spare, please consider letting us know about how your creativity intersects with your gaming: https://camdenrutgers.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0VzeOA1fJHthpkN And please spread the link around. Once the...

Edward CastronovaReal world experts are starting to think about all the economic value stored up in digital currencies. Here's a blog post about it by Joel McKendrick, pointed out to me by Robert Gehorsam. Thanks Robert!

Edward CastronovaA few things I noticed wandering the expo floor. I was surprised to hear some people say that this is a fairly decent year for hiring. I thought it was a down time for the industry, but perhaps in interactive entertainment, down just means, not growing as fast. Or, we get this...

Edward CastronovaSlant Six Games will deploy a procedural cinematic engine in Microsofts Galactic Reign. The segments of film are available to the engine and it creates a linear visual narrative that depends on player actions and the game state.

Edward CastronovaWhen I was a wee lad, the turnaround time for a piece of research was 5-6 years. From the first idea to the day it appeared in a journal. We now see functional models in game analytics that address practical social science problems in a couple months. Seems fast! But isn't fast...

Edward CastronovaRobert George in the April edition of the magazine First Things makes a case for limited government that relies on an Aristotelian view of human flourishing. For Aristotle, he says, "flourishing consists in doing things, not just in getting things, or having desirable or pleasant...

Edward CastronovaGames will become more reactive to us. The industry is beginning to build systems to produce environments that react in novel ways to the user. A World Manager that directs your experience. Entities that analyze statistics before making choices. Game objects that dynamically...

Edward CastronovaJust saw a report from RIT, UCSC, and Northeastern about their efforts to build game programs. The meta data here is astounding. Ten years ago, nobody had anything. They launched little programs over significant opposition. The demand for places however vastly exceeded supply....

Edward CastronovaIf you've never been to this conference or E3, the first thing that impresses you is the scale. Gigantic and global. I still have trouble grasping how big the business of designing play has become. This talk is by the CEO of Kongregate. It's about retaining players for the long...

Edward CastronovaLet's all go back to 2007 when blogs were proto-tweets. This week I'll be sending stuff from the Game Developers Conference. My iPad doesn't support Typepad's nice text editing features so its just going to be plain text, no cutesy images and all that. Links? No, I can't do that...

Edward CastronovaI know everyone has been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to spend money to get one of my papers. The wait is over!!! It's this paper where I say "Instead of having talks at conferences, can we have games?" I don't know, I find talks so boring. I just get antsy. And it seems to me...

Edward CastronovaEconomist Russ Roberts runs EconTalk, a rather cool series of podcasts on edgy topics in economics. These are the guys who brought you the Keynesian-Monetarist rap debate. What's not to love? Well, they've got a great interview with Valve's economist Yanis Varoufakis. It's...

Hey everybody - after a bunch of false starts I got updated builds onto Humble that I believe aren't rubbish. Alpha 4.31, codename Mukor. One of the biggest changes in the new update is the MUKOR cheat - anywhere in...

Hey everybody, just got a new build of the game up on Humble, so download away. One of the biggest things in this build is Rift DK2 support. Enough said, I think. Another big thing in this build is I...

We did it. We got a meaty patch up! That new character model and gamefeel improvements I promised are finally in. I even made a trailer for the first time in over a year because I feel this one's worth...

If you?re already a proud owner of the Energy Hook alpha, you can download the update now. If not, you can become an owner at http://energyhookgame.com. With this update, I?ve upgraded to Unity 4.6 and introduced a lot of new...

I'm through the woods with the update to Unity 4.6, so I'm going to call the next patch alpha 4.0. And in the spirit of Team Fortress and Awesomenauts, I'm going to name it: Buggier Then Hell. At this point...

It feels a bit like fighting fire with fire but I don't see what else to do - I've followed in the footsteps of Brett Douville, Richard Lemarchand, and others and contacted Intel. Here is the letter I wrote. I...

I've been dragging my feet about making an update because, well, I just haven't accomplished anything of note in the last month. I've been getting my ass kicked by UI bugs and decided to upgrade to the latest Unity UI...

Just last month Happion Labs launched Sixty Second Shooter Prime for the Xbox One through their ID@Xbox program. Now, I?m one of the cheapest game developers I know. I?ve been indie for almost nine years now and am still in...

The game that I had to convince Sony and my Kickstarter backers to let me make (bless y'all) is arriving tomorrow, 6/19, at 9 AM UTC! In the near future I'll put up some posts about what it was like...

I was on a new podcast. "Jamie Frinstrom from Happion Labs who is here to talk about 2 games he has coming out over the next few months as well as answering some of our questions." http://www.the-cloud.name/white-noise-online-show-02/

Back when I got started in game development, the way to get a game made was to get picked by a distributor to be put into retail. MindCraft was picked by EA's distribution arm, and we got Magic Candle into...

Holidays, conferences, and a memorial service meant I didn't get as much done as I'd like since the last update, but a new one is up. One of the biggest complaints about the last build is that you can't use...

It took me a while to get myself to sit down and write a second real post in this column or series I imagined myself writing on happiness in game development. Of the many things I could write about next,...

You know what? Lots of indie game developers blog about how to make money (or sell more product, which is kind of the same thing). But do any of them blog about how to be happy while you?re doing it?...

If you're in the Seattle area, come on down: (sorry for the late notice) https://www.facebook.com/events/1426144417616603/ If not, it just so happens we live in The Future and anybody can broadcast anything, whenever! http://www.twitch.tv/seattleindies/

Was there really an indie bubble? Or a golden age of indie? We look back in time and remember hearing about these successes on iOS, console, Steam - but when we try our own hands at going indie we don?t...

There's a method behind the madness to my update labeling scheme. The a is for alpha. The first number is what source control system iteration I'm on - I never meant to go to a third system, but circumstances warranted....

Hey, this hour of code thing is kind of cool. Sofia kind of lost interest after about 15 minutes. "I'm tired of making the zombie find the flower" but I told her she could stay up past her bedtime if...

Back in the olden days when compile times were long I almost always had a book on programming or management at my desk and was able to buttress my experiential knowledge with theoretical. These days where turnaround times are so...

A couple weeks ago I set my 8 year old daughter Sofia down in front of rpgmaker and she happily got to work more-or-less cloning her favorite game, a Warriors RPG (the series of books about talking feral cats, not...

Yet another mistake to avoid when going from Corporate to Indie - which ties into some of the other mistakes I've written about, like hubris and team size - is spending money. (I suck at this game. But I'm getting...

Back before Energy Hook, I was working on a guitar game for Microsoft where you'd actually improvise your own music as you played, and then what you'd improvise would loop, creating patterns of repetition and variation ... in other words,...

You can get the new build at http://energyhookgame.com if you don't already have it. This build has gear customization (adjust the speed of your jets, the parameters of your energy hook, and more); new animations (hold X+Y to get at...

For the past six months I've been trying the 'quarterly goals' thing, where you have three professional and three personal goals each quarter - so I just finished my second quarter. The first quarter I hit 4 out of 6;...

With Torpex, it cost thousands what with Bill and myself talking with lawyers and creating our 'pre-nup' so to speak. So ... that's what I thought it would cost to do it by myself, too. Turns out it doesn't. In...

In Seattle for PAX? Check out the Seattle Indies Expo on Sunday, September 1st. It's connected to the convention center, and it's where all the indies will be who were too slow or too poor to make it into the...

Now that the Kickstarter alpha backers have had over a month to kick the tires I'm opening up Energy Hook for slacker backers who either missed the Kickstarter or changed their minds and want to play Right Now! energyhookgame.com I'm...

A bunch of cool stuff in the latest biweekly update. I've improved the first person mode: the camera tilts and pitches when you run on walls and swing around, and you can look down at yourself. It's really close to...

I'll be talking at Unite 2013 - August 29th at 5pm. http://unity3d.com/unite/unite2013/schedule For a sneak preview you can check out this article on using SketchUp and assets from Google Warehouse in Unity. I'll be demonstrating that live and answering questions....

I heard about the Ludum Dare 7drts just a couple days before it happened and said, "Why not?" After checking on Facebook to see if people who are avidly waiting for Energy Hook would be pissed off, asking my wife...

Okay - I'm going to do 7drts! That's right, I'm going to make a real-time-strategy game in seven days. And I'm going to livestream as much of it as possible just for kicks -http://twitch.tv/happionlabs (starting around 10AM today) My design...

Over the last few years (six, it's been six!) I've spent no small amount of words on the delights of being Batman in Rocksteady's (and WB Montreal's, that one time) Arkham series. Here is a series of games that, for the first...

The Roman expedition to reclaim the lost lands of the Western Empire progresses well. The Vandalic Kingdom in Africa lies in ashes, reclaimed for my Emperor, the Ostrogothic Kingdom is on the back foot, crushed under the...

You’d be forgiven if you told me that this was the first you’ve heard of Devil’s Third. In fact the first I’d heard of it was when The Bosses at SPOnG banged on my door, wrote the embargo details on my walls in...

For many years now it seems I have been on an epic quest to find the perfect fighting game. Countless copies of games later and I still find myself being disappointed in one way or another – still searching,...

Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3 is not the usual kind of game I would choose to play a on handheld. This isn't to say that it's bad, but it certainly doesn't suit a small screen or the shorter play sessions that usually...

Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure takes the old rules and gives them a slight twist. A bit like changing medication just enough to combat a new virus in the real world, the game's challenges have grown in complexity. No longer do we just...

Gamers of a certain age harbour nostalgic thoughts of games from the SNES era, we remember them being a lot better than they actually were, usually in both graphics and gameplay. The Escapists felt like being handed one of...

When I think about some of my favourite games there seems to be a common thread between most of them. Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto 5, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Dark Souls... I could go on.

This is it, the last of the games Chris saw at Rezzed! And if you're wondering about why we're still covering Rezzed in May, well... Chris played and wrote about a whole sh!t ton of games, basically. If you go to our...

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the next three previews from his time...

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the next three previews from his time spent taking a...

There’s nothing more pleasing to me than the sight of two mighty fleets clashing in the vastness of space. Shallow Space Insurgency’s alpha demo contains merely that, but even with the tiny taste of space...

The view from the floor at EGX Rezzed[Posted 28 Apr 2015 by Chris O'Regan]

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the next three previews from his...

I’m going to kick this off by letting you know that by no means am I an experienced Mortal Kombat player. In fact, my Mortal Kombat experience goes as far as probably 10 hours’ worth of fights on MK9 at a...

Before I launch into my preview of Godzilla I just want to make it clear that this game is based on the Japanese Godzilla and not the one Hollywood has tried to make on several occasions and largely failed.

I first encountered Project CARS at EuroGamer Expo 2014. The demo crashed as it ground to a halt while I tried to steer the on-screen car, only to find myself wrestling with the unresponsive controls. I wasn't at all...

One thing’s for sure, even after the PR disaster that was Assassin’s Creed Unity, the series isn’t going to go away. In fact, Ubisoft is so keen to keep the franchise at the front of our minds that it's not even willing...

Ever since I played Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube I've been somewhat drawn to the 'Tales' series of games that have sometimes, but not often enough, appeared in Europe. While the main titles have appeared outside of...

The view from the floor at EGX Rezzed 2015[Posted 15 Apr 2015 by Chris O'Regan]

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the first three previews from...

I'm going to be the first admit to not being at all familiar with the world of Naruto. Japanese anime has always left me somewhat cold as it seems to follow the same basic traits of big explosions, people grimacing, bulging...

Modern videogames have a tendency to want to guide you through every system they possess before unleashing you upon their world - 'hand-holding'. The thinking behind this is understandable - developers want people to be...

The view from the floor at EGX Rezzed[Posted 7 Apr 2015 by Chris O'Regan]

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the first three previews from his...

An old friend, trying to look all grown up[Posted 3 Apr 2015 by Cameron Emmott]

If I discovered a magical space egg, my first instinct would not be to try and harvest it for energy, but apparently the denizens of the Etherium universe don't think like me and the battle to harvest...

Toukiden: Age of Demons was a release for the Playstation Vita. Toukiden: Kiwami is a mix of remaster and sequel, it contains the content of the original game with enhanced graphics and mechanics, plus a story that goes...

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D has me in a bit of a quandary. I never played it on the Wii - by the time it had come out I had already sold off that platform and moved on - but Xenoblade remained a game I regretted not...

This week I was supposed to be reviewing OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood on the PS Vita and PS4. Now I really loved the first OlliOlli and I even had the developers on as guests for The Sausage Factory podcast so...

It’s been a very long time since I picked up a Dragon Ball game. Everything that was made after the Budokai series seemed very repetitive to me, so I have bided my time until they added something that myself and...

If the last few days have taught me anything, it's that I would make a terrible nomadic chieftain, an even worse Roman Emperor and a disappointingly adequate Frankish king. Attila: Total War is the next game...

News: Includes locations such as the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. These world famous locations become the settings for your investigation with hundreds of reproduced works of art for you to admire throughout your adventure.!

News: Entrants have a chance to win one of three (3) "ghost-hunting kits" including real-life versions of the modern ghost-hunting tools used by ghost-hunters Nigel Danvers and Lucy Reubans in The Lost Crown: A Ghost-hunting Adventure.

Review: "It's a reasonable length for this type of episodic game though I would have liked to have done more in the TV studio. It?s the darkest of the series thus far but you?ll be smiling rather than ducking under the desk or covering your eyes.... Another fun episode with a few good laughs....

News: Begin your adventure in what appears to be a deserted old ship, grounded on a beautiful Pacific island. You mysteriously find yourself in the ship?s operations room faced with a highly advanced panel of controls...

Review: "I think it could have been awesome. Shorter, sharper, and throw out the arcade puzzles. Eke out the punch line, and then get to the resolution. Like the TV series I mentioned, Next Life got lost. I desperately wanted to rate it higher, but in the end what it wasn't smothered what it was.

News: A scary, and thrilling, new adventure title inspired by classic ghoststories and today's modern ghosthunting techniques. The haunting works of Charles Dickens, M.R.James, Arthur Conan Doyle and E.F.Benson combine with night-vision cameras!

Review: "There will be a fair bit of breaking and entering, and its concomitant locked door opening. A fair few of the puzzles involve locks and combinations, but the methodology varies. Decipher a diary entry here, fiddle with a few things there.

News: Set in a labyrinthine world of hidden rooms and secret passages, strange vehicles and odd machines, Rhem 3 opens the door to a new journey of mystery and adventure. In search of a certain black gem, hints hidden in a secret library and clues offered by the peculiar inhabitants will assist...

News: In this episode, a surprise trip to the tropics turns into a working vacation when Sam & Max sign up to stop a massive volcano eruption. Will their special blend of bewildering wit and renegade justice be enough to win over the gods? (Not to mention the locals?)

Review: "...the first thing that will likely grab you is the way in which the real life locations have been touched up to look like watercolour paintings. It creates a very pretty gaming environment, brightening up even the most mundane and decrepit warehouse.

Review: "It's an investigative game with a difference due to a quite novel interface. You collect clues and objects as in any detective game but in this one you are able to mix and match them and come up with new clues. This you do in the 'thought window'..."

News: Memento Mori sets up two main characters. It is the player?s task to uncover with the help of Larisa Svetlova and Maxim Durand: the secret of the St Petersburg art theft, the mysterious order and its machinations.

News: A dark, shocking, uncompromising, and fear charged horror adventure game, that casts the player in the role of Sheriff Alex Truman as he attempts to break the monotony of life by piecing together the history and origins of a disturbed and unidentified car crash victim.

Review: "Just click on a small portrait and you're transported to the scene of the crime. Although the story follows the book with the same setting, the same characters, and even the same murder, to add extra intrigue it deviates as to whodunit."

Review: "There is once again a tutorial to introduce new players to the controls, and the game sparkles with bright and colourful graphics; great, upbeat music and the voices are excellent as usual. So what has changed apart from the extra length and complexity?..."

News: The gorgeous point & click title takes players to a fascinating fantasy world. Hand-painted backgrounds filled with animated
detail and lovingly crafted characters bring the fairy-tale story
of The Whispered World to life.

News: A scary, and thrilling, new adventure title inspired by classic ghoststories and today's modern ghosthunting techniques. The haunting works of Charles Dickens, M.R.James, Arthur Conan Doyle and E.F.Benson combine with night-vision cameras, E.V.P and other ghosthunting gadgets to bring a...

News: Famous detective Hercule Poirot is back in typical style, turning up at just the right time to begin an investigation into the murder of a famous actress during what should have been the start of a relaxing holiday.

News: Humongous, Inc. announce that four games in its highly regarded adventure series for kids 3 to 11 are returning to store shelves for the first time in over 10 years. Putt Putt Saves the Zoo, Freddi Fish: Kelp Seed Mystery, Pajama Sam; Don't Fear the Dark, and Spy Fox Dry Cereal

A couple of months back Microsoft demonstrated its hologram projecting device that it called HoloLens. It has been on a few outings with Microsoft since then but the company has not yet provided it to developers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that ?V1″ of HoloLens will be shipped to...

It has been a while since music mogul Dr. Dre came out with a new album and his fans can now start counting down the days because Dre has confirmed that there’s a new album just around the corner. Unsurprisingly his first new album in 16 years is going to be an Apple Music and iTunes...

User safety is obviously a priority for Facebook and that?s one of the reasons why it has dedicated teams and intelligent security systems to ensure that users have a safe experience on the world?s largest social network. Users are also provided with optional security controls that they can...

The world has been outraged by the killing of Cecil the Lion after the famous big cat was lured out of his sanctuary and killed by a hunter. Amid calls for bringing the hunter to justice many have turned their attention to focus on conservation efforts and are generously donating money for the...

Last month the U.S. Office of Personnel Management was hit by a drastic cyberattack which resulted in personal information of millions of current and former U.S. government employees to be stolen. While the Obama administration has refrained from pointing fingers it?s believed that the...

Say your computer got hacked and you lose your files in the process. Sure, it sucks, but it?s not necessarily the end of the world. However imagine if you are hooked up to hospital equipment that?s in charge of pumping drugs into your system, or maybe even keeping you alive like a ventilator,...

Rise of the Tomb Raider will be the sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot from 2013. We expect that there will be a lot of new features and things for players to do, and for those who want to get the best value for their money, you might be interested to learn that the game will actually be 3 times as...

Yahoo has been on a roll recently and has been acquiring companies all over the place. Their latest acquisition comes in the form of Polyvore, which for all you fashion lovers and shoppers online are probably familiar with. The acquisition has since been confirmed by Yahoo on their Tumblr page...

The BlackBerry Dallas is a handset whose name has been floating about for a while now. In fact the handset has even been spotted recently at the FCC where hopefully this means that we are inching closer towards an official announcement. That being said obviously Dallas won?t be its final name.Now...

If you typically head on over to Sony?s online store to purchase their products, as opposed to going through another retailer like Amazon or maybe Adorama for your Sony camera needs, you might want to start looking for another retailer. Sony has recently begun to send out emails to its customers,...

We have been hearing a fair bit about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+. We have seen some leaks and here and there but thanks to the ever reliable @evleaks, we could be looking at our first press rendering of both devices which you can see for yourself in the image...

One of the rumored features of the upcoming iPhone 6s is the inclusion of Force Touch, a feature that originally debuted with the Apple Watch and was later introduced to Apple?s MacBook trackpads. Now in June we had heard that orders for the component had been placed, and now it looks like...

Chrome is a great browser, especially if you?re a heavy user of Google?s products and services. However its performance on Apple?s OS X platform is not particularly great and it has been found to be something of a battery drain. Now if you?re looking to extend the battery life of your MacBook,...

While many users are reporting that they have received their Windows 10 updates, there are some who are still waiting for theirs. Now as Microsoft has stated, the rollout could take days or weeks to reach you, so if you have reserved your copy, you can rest easy knowing that it will make its way...

Whisky is usually aged in barrels made out of oak. The belief is that the qualities of the wood will help give the whisky its distinct taste, although the length of aging will really depend on that particular line and the company, with cheaper brands and companies going for an artificial form of...

Last week there was an interesting rumor which suggested that Apple and BMW were apparently in talks at one point, with Apple being interested in using BMW?s i3 electric car as the base of their own electric car. The rumors then suggested that eventually the talks fell through, and now according...

How is the Apple Watch doing? According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, not so well. The publication reports that according to analyst Mark Li who works at Bernstein Research, it seems that a comment made by one of Apple?s suppliers has hinted that the Apple Watch might not be selling...

Things around the home do seem to get smarter and smarter these days, and hence, it is far from surprising to hear that there is a new smart mirror in the pipeline that is known as the Wize Mirror. The Wize Mirror intends to play the role of a seasoned primary care physician who tend to be able...

Business is all about opportunity cost ? most businesses would like to own their premises, but reality dictates that rental is the way to go until one makes such a huge profit and finds a suitable seller. Having said that, one?s business would also need to make adequate profit to cover the costs...

Last year Apple and IBM announced a partnership in which it would see Apple make a bigger push in the enterprise market. Earlier this year, IBM was reportedly planning on purchasing as many as 50k MacBooks to give out to employees by the end of 2015, but now thanks to a leaked internal memo video...

There are several different virtual reality headsets in the market that we can already get our hands on. This includes the likes of the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard, where the latter can either be built by yourself or you can purchase pre-built ones by other manufacturers. If there?s one...

When you get a message from a stranger on the internet, you might be suspicious and rightfully so. However sometimes it might be a friend or co-worker that you don?t have on social media yet, so it isn?t always a dangerous or fishy situation. That being said, one of the ways Google has been...

Victory Motorcycles has definitely taken another step into the future with the unveiling of its very first, fully electric motorcycle that is known as the 2016 Empulse TT. Make no bones about it, the Empulse TT is a road-legal electric streetbike that will be based on Brammo’s Empulse R,...

Exploding Kittens, the most backed Kickstarter project of all time when we talked about it earlier this year, has started to see the card game ship. Just how huge was the funding? Well, with an original funding goal of just $10,000, it seems that the entire Kickstarter project managed to gather a...

Ah, how would our communication be like without any kind of emoji? Certainly it is a bigger step compared to emoticons,and with the launch of Windows 10 by Microsoft, there is also an accompanying updated set of illustrated characters, where among them include flipping the bird. What?s that? Oh,...

Just like how Apple has been seeding iOS 9 betas to developers and the public, Google has also been steadily releasing developer previews of their next-gen mobile operating system Android M. So far there have been two releases with the third expected for a release by the end of July.Given that we...

Slightly more than a week ago, we did hear that the NVIDIA SHIELD Portable has received the Android 5.1 Lollipop update, and just earlier this morning, we brought you word that the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet has been issued a recall due to a potential overheating hazard. Well, perhaps it would be a...

Sony has an event planned for the 3rd of August in which we can only assume new phones will be launched. We had speculated that maybe we might see the Xperia Z5 and the Xperia C5 Ultra, but as it turns out we might see an additional device in the form of the Xperia M5, thanks to leaked photos...

Earlier this year you might have heard that the YotaPhone 2 would be making its way stateside. If you were excited to get your hands on the phone, you were not alone as we were just as excited to check it out ourselves. Unfortunately it looks like that will no longer be happening, as confirmed by...

Recently, many cloud music streaming services have sprung out, and almost every music lover has playlists on one of them. You can easily stream music from anywhere in the world for free and even see what others are listening. However, cloud music cannot match the comfort and satisfaction of...

Memes can be found all over the internet and are very fun to read, or build. In most cases, these are simple pictures with two lines of text, enough to put a smile on your face. The best part is, anyone can create these memes and publish them to the world. The only thing required is some humor...

We did hear of Toyota?s HSR before ? which is short for ?human support robot?, and it will sport a solitary mechanical arm that has the ability to grasp objects of different shapes as well as sizes, and not only that, there is also an integrated suction cup that will allow it to pick up smaller...

Back in March last year, we did hear of Firechat, an app that has plans to enable folks to send messages to one another without the need for any kind of Internet connectivity. This offline chat is said to work best when the recipients happen to be within 10 meters of one another. This mobile app...

There is a pilot program that is being run by a utility company in California, where a hundred BMW i3 owners have been chosen to participate in a research, being given $1,000 in the process. The whole idea of this would be to have an adequate sample field to measure the impact charging times that...

Earlier this month, we reported that the Limited Edition Destiny: The Taken King PS4 bundle is all set to arrive later this September, and here is some more good news for those of you who are on the lookout for this unique bundle. Pre-orders of Limited Edition Destiny: The Taken King PS4 Bundle...

NVIDIA?s SHIELD tablet, having picked up the Android 5.1 Lollipop update a couple of months ago, might seem to be humming along nicely, but it looks as though some tough times are up ahead. In other words, NVIDIA has announced a voluntary recall of its SHIELD 8-inch tablets, although not the...

Samsung of South Korea has certainly come up with its fair amount of consumer electronics devices in the past, and they certainly do not look as though they are about to stop. Samsung is right now taking the lead in the mobile printing market, and they are also a leader in the realm of NFC...

Guns are used to shoot people, and are typically meant to shoot with lethal force. In fact trying to disarm someone by shooting them in the arm or leg can sometimes lead to permanent damage. That being said, it looks like the US military is said to be working on a non-lethal gun that can emit a...

Many people use Twitter, but the beauty of Twitter is that you don?t need to have a Twitter account if all you want to do is read tweets. Unsurprisingly that?s just not good for business as Twitter has since launched a new website that users who aren?t logged in will be able to view, as you can...

A few years ago after Megaupload was taken down by the authorities, the man behind it all Kim Dotcom launched Mega, another file hosting service that promised more a secure means of storing and sharing files. However in 2013, Dotcom announced he would be leaving Mega but assured that the service...

The Resident Evil Facebook page indicates the recent Resident Evil HD may be followed by a similar high definition remake of Resident Evil 2 (thanks Destructoid). Here's word on the survival of this...

Totem Games now offers digital distribution of Ironclads 2: American Civil War, an unexpected sequel to their strategy game set in the early days of modern naval conflict. Here's word: In 1862, when...

Gospelherald.com - 'Command and Conquer- Generals 2' Release Date- Is EA Allowing This Well-Known Gaming Franchise to Die? Not the first place one would expect to see this editorial. Thanks CNCNZ.com...

Dustin Browder has replied to a couple of concerns about Heroes of the Storm on Twitter, addressing one ongoing issue about the MOBA as well as a newer one. The major issue is the game's matchmaking...

A World of Warcraft forum post from Bashiok announces this prominent community manager is parting ways with Blizzard after almost 12 years as one of the most visible presences on their forums (thanks...

A new trailer from Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces wraps up their "Know Your Units" series with a look at The Emplacements. Word is: "The fourth and final installment in the Know Your Units...

The Brackets Are Set for The International - Dota 2. Also, New International immortal treasures are now available for a limited time. IGF 2016 Submissions now being accepted. Speedrunners becomes an...

A new patch is now available for Assetto Corsa on Steam, updating the VR-friendly racing game (currently on sale for half-off) to version 1.2. This change log has complete details on the patch, while...

Is it a problem that "LEGO Harry Potter" is the most anticipated game of the year at Lunabean HQ? Nah. We're just big, huge...I'm mean ginormous Harry Potter fans and the LEGO games have proven to be fun as all get out.

Let's file this under the "why the hell not" category. An iPad software developer has connected the TV Out jack on the iPad to a 42" TV, essentially making it a console. The iPhone is being used wirelessly via Bluetooth as the controller. I'm in!

Sam Fisher is back. This time, he's caught wind that his daughter may be alive! I think he needs some help with that. Lunabean's "Splinter Cell Conviction" Game Guide and Walkthrough (Xbox 360, PC) is a 100% stealth (no detection) walkthrough written on the hardest difficulty setting...

Nintendo recently announced a 3D version of its popular DS hardware. It will go on sale sometime within the fiscal year (ending March 2011) and will not require special glasses to use. Maybe the trick is that you need to zork out your eyes like when looking at the "Magic Eye" pics (stereograms)...

Under duress from the Red Queen shouting, "Off with their heads!," we have finished our "Alice in Wonderland" walkthrough and strategy guide (Wii, PC, DS)! You now possess everything you need to vanquish the Queen and restore order to Wonderland.

Help Alice and her friends navigate the perils of Wonderland with Lunabean's "Alice in Wonderland" Game Guide and Walkthrough (Wii, DS, PC). This Tim Burton inspired game places you into the Disney movie and we're here to make sure you don't miss a thing. When we're finished, this will be a...

It feels as if Spring has already sprung here in Oregon...the cherry blossoms are budding and the crocuses are up. What a wonderful backdrop to get into a video game that we've been eagerly awaiting, "Disney's Alice in Wonderland The Videogame" for both the Wii and DS.We'll be writing up...

This one may have slipped under the radar seeing as I failed to announce it in any venue other than our newsletter. So, here I am, announcing that we have a "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" Walkthrough and Strategy Guide for your game playing enjoyment.

Just saw this on Gizmodo. Apparently, select Best Buys and Walmarts had buy back kiosks where you could sell your used games. Both retailers have deemed the experiment a failure and GameStop has breathed a sigh of relief. Via Gizmodo

Feelin' lucky? How does a free year of access to all of our stellar Walkthroughs sound? Well, if it sounds good to you, all you need to do is follow these easy steps.1) Follow @lunabean on Twitter.2) Tweet the following:Just entered to win a year LunaPass (Lunabean Video Game Guides)! You can...

We are so pleased to announce the completion of the Lunabean "The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks" walkthrough and strategy guide (Nintendo DS). Writing this massive tome was a task worthy of Link taking down a Final Boss, and boy, are we exhausted!

LEGO Indy is back! This time, he'll tackle new adventures in Raiders, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade, and The Crystal Skull. We're here to help you help Indy not only get through this hilarious adventure, but to locate every single item in the game, like canisters, red bricks, gold bricks,...

There is news this week that in November 2009 the Netflix streaming service will be coming to a PS3 near you (here and here). That piqued my curiosity as Allison and I had recently signed up for Netflix and the streaming service is currently active on the Xbox 360.You see, our nearby Blockbuster...

What do you get if you combine "The Minority Report" and Dungeons & Dragons? The best thing ever! Duh. If only you could have your own dice and have the screen read the result. Seriously, my dragon skin bag full...

As I wrote nearly four years ago during the launch of the Xbox 360, Best Buy did some sketchy bait and switch where they advertised a stand alone system but then required those of us in line to buy an expensive bundle. I, and many others, complained to the Oregon Attorney General. The other...

When I wrote Lunabean's Harry Potter: HBP Walkthrough there was one thing I just couldn't unlock: Bonus Quidditch.I figured that it would unlock once I earned all crests. Nope. I then figured if I got all of the Quidditch badges it would unlock. Nope. Maybe all badges in everything? Nope....

As Kotaku points out, Bill O'Reilly recently commented on a supposedly viral "Guitar Hero 5" ad where the song titles to be included in the game are written across blackout strips on naked models. While the hypocrisy of giving air time to a viral ad that you are disgusted by always gets me, the...

Knights, Pirates, and Spacemen. Oh my! The LEGOs, they are a battling and the LB LEGO Battles Game Guide (Walkthrough, Strategy Guide and Cheats) for the Nintendo DS is currently in the works. It will contain strategies for all 90 levels, all Red Bricks and all Mini-Kits!

The spirits of NYC have been awakened and it's up to you to help the Ghostbusters catch them! LB Ghostbusters: The Video Game Game Guide (Walkthrough, Strategy Guide and Cheats) for the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC is currently in the works and is sure to help you capture ghosts, fight bosses, find...

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Over at GameSetWatch there's an article today from game designer Brice Morrison, who takes a look at the Wii and its successes and failures. It's the second of a two part series. The first part focused on what the Wii did right, and the second part takes it to task for its shortcomings. The...

In a sobering update today, we feel compelled - despite going outside our normal subject of choice - to keep those who read our previous story on missing gamer Brandon Crisp up to speed. It seems the police have decided to end their search for the runaway 15 year old after roughly two weeks of [...]

Rob Fahey over at GamesIndustry.biz recently dropped a piece examining the state of games festivals, specifically decrying the fact that these conventions are typically industry-only events that don't speak to consumers, representing a failure by the industry to grow up and look outside of...

Kyle Orland over at Crispy Gamer drops his latest installment in his Press Pass column, in which he rounds up comments from games journalists who discuss their feelings on the impact pre-release hype has on review scores for blockbuster and heavily promoted titles.

The efforts of Shoe and Crispin over at Sore Thumbs has been well documented here at the Watch, but now their readers are getting in on the action over there, too. The blog is posting "Reader Perspectives" from their fans, whether they be Joe Gamer or members of the press.

We really should start thanking Dan Hsu personally, because his and Crispin Boyer's Sore Thumbs blog either directly or indirectly accounts for a big 'ole chunk of the publisher/press relations dirt we cover these days. This time, it's an indirect occurrence courtesy of the happy-go-lucky...

Games review site GameCritics has contacted VGMWatch to inform us of modifications to their reviews structure that reflect their concerns over the state of the games industry in the wake of such highly-publicized debacles as Gerstmann-gate. The site will now include a disclosure concerning the...

Over the weekend Dan Hsu at Sore Thumbs blog delivered his promised Part 5 of Behind the Scenes: Gaming Journalism. All five parts thus far have been good looks into what's going on concerning press/publisher relations in the games industry, and this latest continues the trend of some swell...

We've featured Rob Fahey's work over at Gamesindustry.biz more than a couple times, largely because he tends to provide timely pieces that reflect on the games industry and the outside forces working upon it. His article "Recessive Traits" today is more poignant and timely than ever, as it...

Hey, leave it to video games to get things going in another medium. Sure, we've seen plenty of recent movie adaptations of popular video games, but it looks like this time a video game may be helping to reinvigorate a preexisting movie franchise - and one that's been in limbo for some time,...

We often discuss how the games industry is perceived outside its walls, chronicling the many mainstream reports about destructive games that (purportedly) drive otherwise innocent folks to do wicked deeds. Often, the biggest culprits - as outlined by the mainstream - are shooting games of various...

In our continuing and ever-lengthening look at video games in the mainstream media, we have a story carried by KGMB9 out of Hawaii, in which a city bus driver was caught playing a video game while.... you guessed it, driving. This isn't one of those cases where games are being treated unfairly;...

I knew it wouldn't take any time for this one to hit the mainstream. British tabloid The Sun has a bit on the tasty news morsel concerning Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS, which recently revealed that the portable title would include a drug dealing mini-game. Sure, it's...

Crispy Gamer has a toasty piece on whether embargoes in the game industry are really necessary, or whether they hurt the reader and protect the wrong party involved. The writer, John Keefer, discusses three main kinds of embargoes: review embargoes, preview embargoes, and new game embargoes....

In the past, VGMWatch has taken a few entities to task - namely, IGN - for a lack of complete disclosure concerning connections within and around the industry which represent a conflict of interest. With the bad comes the good, however, and we need to highlight when entities are conducting...

GamePolitics yesterday reported on an interesting little mainstream story concerning the Daily Mail. The story revolved around a young 13 year old boy (name withheld given his age) who decided to set fire to three vehicles in Lyon, France, purportedly because of video games. After speaking with...

File this one under the "Ineptitude" category. Shoe over at Sore Thumbs posted the fourth installment of his "Behind the Scenes: Gaming Journalism" series on Sunday, but thanks to my blundering in forgetting to type in the "blog" part of the "sorethumbsblog.com" address the last couple times I...

1UP recently posted an interview with Tomonobu Itagaki of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame, republished from the September 2008 EGM released last month. The sit down with Itagaki, which suitably occurred at a bar, is more than worth a look owing that it's the first interview with the game...

Something fun: Eighth Wonder of the World Michael Phelps and his eight-Beijing-Olympic-gold-medal-self appeared Thursday on CBS' Early Show - and the hosts decided to pull a stunt to outshine even Phelps' magnificent feat.

That's a question Gamesindustry.biz columnist Rob Fahey ruminates on this week, and while he doesn't pretend to have the answers, he poses some interesting considerations as to why the issue of games piracy may very likely be much-ado-about-not-that-much.

Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander wrote on Monday for Kotaku on the issue of "games as art". Okay, okay, granted this topic has been run into the ground and stomped on, but Alexander utilizes a recent story to reexamine and redefine the significance of art, games, and where the two may intersect. ...

First image out of my Lytro — I just received my Lytro lightfield camera. It's the first commercialized plenoptic camera, which is an optical device with an array of lenses to capture a scene at multiple focal points. There's a lot of terrible rhetoric in the tech and electronics...

The style of thatgamecompany — While we often see the evolution of artists working in old media, ever-shifting technical terrain tends to obscure videogame makers' aesthetic trajectories. In Thatgamecompany's pathbreaking and gorgeous games for the Playstation 3, we get the rare chance to...

Anna Anthropy's new book — These days, everybody can make and distribute a photograph, or a video, or a book. Rise of the Videogame Zinesters shows you that everyone can make a videogame, too. But why should they? For Anna Anthropy, it's not for fame or for profit, but for the strange,...

My schedule for this year's event — It's almost time for the Game Developers Conference again! To think, last year I was struggling to escape the grip of a certain cow game, and this year I've perhaps almost partly escaped the grip of a certain cow game. This year I've got a relatively...

or, A Slow Year at the Telfair — This week, the Telfair Museums will open Game Change: Videogames as Art Medium and Inspiration. My game A Slow Year is among the pieces that will be on exhibit from February 27 to April 1, 2012. I'll be in Savannah Thursday evening for the Game Change panel,...

Water Cooler Games is now closed. Thanks for reading all these years. The site has been archived in full (with comments) at http://www.bogost.com/watercoolergames. For my take on "videogames with an agenda," you might want to read Persuasive Games. I am now blogging at Bogost.com. This RSS feed...

An update on my next book — I talked to my publisher this week and got news that Alien Phenomenology is scheduled to land in the warehouse by March 7. It should be shipping to booksellers immediately thereafter. If you preorder from Amazon.com, you'll see it ship out that very week. While I...

Me on NPR's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane — I've had a chance to be on a number of different radio programs, both national and local. I really like doing radio, particularly longer programs on NPR and CBC since the additional time really allows more sustained exploration of a topic....

It's not the same as writing books — Back when his book The Textual Life of Airports was published in December, Christopher Schaberg reported what most authors do: seeing his book for the first time. "What a weird feeling," Chris wrote. "It resembles an object from outer space. Vaguely...

Work with me at Georgia Tech Digital Media — We have a job opening for a staff position in my program at Georgia Tech. The job is for an Academic Professional, who will serve as assistant to the Graduate Program in Digital Media. You get to work with me and nine other core faculty in the...

— Just a short pointer post for those who get my updates via blog or RSS. Last month Slashdot covered the Wired article about me and Cow Clicker, and invited readers to pose questions. The editors selected some, which I answered, and which Slashdot has now published. The questions were...

— Originally published as an opinion piece at Gamasutra In Greek mythology, Bellerophon is the hero who tamed the Pegasus. He used the winged horse as a mount to defeat the Chimaera, a monster with the heads of a lion, goat, and snake that breathed fire and devoured villagers. Bellerophon's...

New blogs, optimized, mobile version, etc. — As promised, I've cleaned up and updated the Speculative Realism blog aggregator. Thanks to those of you who made suggestions in the comments or by contacting me directly. A few quick notes: I've added a link to the aggregator in the right...

A quick response to Joshua McVeigh-Schulz — There's an interesting discussion over at Culture Digitally between Gina Neff, Tim Jordan, and Joshua McVeigh-Schulz on the subject of technical agency, or "how we should (re)theorize the politics of technological systems." Gina Neff's opening...

From my Persuasive Games column at Gamasutra — From Humble Bundle to Steam Sales, from Indie Royale to Indie Gala, it seems like you can't go online anymore without seeing a new "game bundle" offering -- a set of unusual, overlooked, and independent game titles offered at a substantial...

Seeking updates for the SR blog aggregator — As many of you know, for some time I've been operating an aggregator for blogs related to speculative realism. You can view post previews on this site, and there's also an RSS feed in case anybody is still using RSS readers ;) It's about time I...

A response to Stanley Fish, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and others — For the first time in five years, I attended the Modern Language Association (MLA) conference. This is the main conference for scholars of language and literature, with about 8,000 attendees at this year's event in Seattle....

At the O-Zone Journal ? The new O-Zone journal has a section called OO Frequency, for content that takes a form other than writing. A while ago they posted my short video for OOOIII, Seeing Things, which deals with the photographer Garry Winogrand and the website Dear Photography. More...

Some notes from in-flight — On planes, passengers lose all connection with personal and cultural history. This is why everything must be explained by flight attendants, carefully and completely yet succinctly, efficiency. To fasten your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle and...

By my nine year-old — It's been a while since my daughter has offered her opinion in writing on matters of contemporary culture. No doubt you remember her reviews of TRON: Legacy, recording artist Madeline's album White Flag, and Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. And if you do, you...

A tiny review — Kopi luwak, or civet coffee, is a rare, expensive, and low-production variety of coffee. A rather unusual process is required to produce the coffee. First, the Asian Palm Civet, native to the Indonesian Archipelago, selects and eats certain wild coffee cherries. The civet...

Responses to Parikka — Jussi Parikka, author of Insect Media among numerous other books, recently posed a series of questions about object-oriented ontology. Levi Bryant has already responded, as has Paul Caplan, and I like both of their responses. I thought I'd offer my own here, so here...

Thoughts on the material conditions of programming practice — I was corresponding yesterday with Jock Murphy, a Portland-based photographer, software engineer, and mobile game developer. Jock had read Racing the Beam, and we were talking about the relative differences between the 6502 and...

Wired's online cow clicking game about Cow Clicker — As promised, I'm now linking the iPad and web versions of Wired's story on Cow Clicker. There are some interesting features of each. The iPad edition features clickable cows that moo, but the online version of the story really, uhm, sets...

In this month's Wired Magazine — Jason Tanz wrote a fantastic feature for the January 2012 issue of Wired about me and Cow Clicker. The feature includes, to use Levi's words, a centerfold of me, on a fence, in a pasture, with a cow (see below). The print issue is on newsstands now, with a...

Briggle and Frodeman in the Chronicle — Adam Briggle and Robert Frodeman have written an excellent article for the Chronicle, A New Philosophy for the 21st Century. A stupid subscription is required, frustratingly, so let me excerpt some of the good bits for you here [update: here's a PDF]:...

Video with talks by me, Jesse Fuchs, Sonny Rae Tempest — I had previously mentioned Innovative Leisure, a show of new games for Atari I curated at Babycastles. The opening took place almost two weeks ago, but due to travel and then the Thanksgiving holiday, it's taken me this long to follow...

Call for Papers — Below is the CFP for a conference to be held by the Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, on May 3-5, 2012. Confirmed invited speakers include me, Jane Bennett, Bill Brown, Wendy Chun, Mark Hansen, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, Tim Morton, and...

— Two new and relatively extensive interviews with me were recently published. The first is in Forbes, conducted by David M. Ewalt. It mostly covers material from my latest book, How to Do Things with Videogames, but there's some new material toward the end. The second interview, with Aaron...

Cover art and Blurb — Here's the cover design, tagline, and blurb for my forthcoming book Alien Phenomenology, or What It's Like to Be a Thing, which will be published by University of Minnesota Press in early 2012. It's hard to express how exciting it is to have a hot wing on the cover of...

A response to Mike Thomsen — The New Inquiry published a review by Michael Thomsen of my latest book How to Do Things With Videogames. It's just the kind of review an author hopes for: fair, thoughtful, based on a thorough reading, and full of new ideas and observations. I'm grateful to...

An event at Georgia Tech this week — This Wednesday, October 19, the Wesley Center for New Media, the Georgia Tech Digital Media Program, and the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture will host a symposium on the future of literature. The event has been orgainzed by Jay David...

Steven Johnson on Derrida — The author Steven Johnson has an essay in the New York Times today, I Was an Under-Age Semiotician, about his younger years as a Semiotics major at Brown. It's worth a read for anyone who did or still does philosophy or "critical theory," to use an annoying term....

A tooth fairy tool for parents ? When your kids lose teeth, they may be inclined to write extensive letters to the tooth fairy, making specific requests or posing questions. While this is an endearing act to be sure, you'll want to stop short of penning a false reply. Instead, see this as an...

My contribution for airplanereading.org — Christopher Schaberg and Mark Yakich have written a lovely little book called Checking in/Checking Out, about air travel. It's a two-sided book meant to be read from both ends. Schaberg's side is about his experience working for United in Bozeman,...

Garry Winogrand, circa 1974 — Tod Papageorge shared with me a talk Garry Winogrand gave at MIT in 1974, which he (Papageorge) introduced. An audio recording from the University of California Riverside's archive captures much of the lively question and answer period, which included a wealth...

Tod Papagorge on the Ontology of Photography — Apropos of two of Levi's recent posts about materialism and fictions, I thought I'd share this excerpt from an interview with photographer Tod Papageorge. He's responding to a question about the need for photography to have a moral...

Leigh Alexander on my games — Popular game enthusiast site Kotaku just published an article by my friend and game writer Leigh Alexander, about my last two games, Cow Clicker and A Slow Year. My good friend Frank Lantz makes several appearances. I guess I'm not going to say much more about...

You've probably noticed how quiet things have become here at PTB in the past month, and if you're read my work for long enough, you've probably guessed that I'm once again having some health issues that have kept me away from writing. After a year of remission, my Crohn's Disease has come roaring...

With all the pressure and buzz pushing players to preorder the latest new video games sight unseen, how does one know when it's safe to put down money on an unproven product? Who do you trust to release a solid, fun, working game? On this episode of the Power Button podcast, Blake Grundman and I...

Another year, another Electronic Entertainment Expo behind us. On this episode of the Power Button podcast, we're joined again by our old friend Ross Polly to discuss the big news and events from E3 2015. We dig into announcements about The Last Guardian, the Final Fantasy VII remake, Star Fox...

The gaming community talks a lot about its love for Nintendo's 1995 Super NES RPG EarthBound (I know I certainly do), but while that one game has a rabid cult following in North America, the game is the middle installment of a full-blown trilogy in Japan. Entitled Mother rather than its localized...

Every June the video game industry flocks to Los Angeles, California for a week of announcements, reveals, press conferences, demos, and surprises. As we gear up for another Electronic Entertainment Expo, we're joined by our old friend Ross Polly to discuss what we each hope to see at this year's...

It's no secret that we're big pinball fans here on Power Button and there are never enough tables out there based on our favorite media properties, so on this week's episode we take the opportunity to spitball some ideas on new tables we'd like to see based on our favorite video games, television...

It's a proven fact that the main theme from Nintendo's classic Super Mario 64 (also known as the "Bob-omb Battlefield theme") will make you smile every time you hear it. This also applies to remixes. Joshua Milo has taken the snappy song and reworked it with a kicking drum line and some brass...

If you missed out on Nathan Drake's adventures last generation or you just want to relive them on a modern console, then Sony has you covered with today's announcement of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection which packs Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3:...

It's inevitable that when something easily produced becomes madly popular and wildly profitable that the knock-off versions of that thing will begin to appear in the marketplace. We've seen counterfeit games for years, but now with Nintendo's amiibo generating such high demand we're starting to...

There's been a lot of talk that the recently released Sony PlayStation 4 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV is hideously broken. I've seen the videos that show odd glitches involving repeating audio tracks, invisible projectiles, and characters able to somehow exist in two places at once....

A few weeks ago we came to terms with the news that Konami was exiting the traditional video game console publishing business in favor of the more lucrative mobile market where microtransactions are king. Just as it seemed as if the days of Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill were behind us, now...

Thanks to developer Zen Studios providing me with early access, I've spent the weekend exploring the company's newest pinball table based on Valve's popular Portal series. Watch as I set a new high score by completing missions while GLaDOS takes shots at me, Wheatley interferes, and Ratman lurks...

Video games today are too easy. Back in the glory days of the 16-bit processors, we knew what a hard game was! Join us for this episode of Power Button in which we reminisce about some of the most challenging video games that combine those elusive factors of legitimate difficulty and poor design....

This article was originally published at Kombo.com on May 10, 2006. Mario?s come a long way since his 1981 inception as Jumpman in Donkey Kong. After setting the side-scrolling platformer world on fire in classic games such as Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World, our plumber hero moved on to...

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but one of the long-standing stalwarts of the video game console business has announced that it's leaving the market in favor of the world of mobile gaming. Game Informer reports that Konami is focusing purely on mobile for upcoming products and that...

Last time on Power Button we started a discussion on buying remastered or otherwise upgraded versions of favorite video games centering around two recent experiences with Shovel Knight and Mortal Kombat X. This week we finish the conversation by digging into an examination at why we rebuy games...

The busy people at Zen Studios must never sleep because they keep cranking out new pinball tables at an increasingly amazing pace. Just weeks after sending tables based on Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars: Rebels out into the world, the company has announced this morning that it's teamed...

Happy Star Wars Day to you all! If you need a Force fix mixed with some pinball action, I'd recommend you check out the new pinball table Zen Studios based on Star Wars: Rebels. Now, I don't know a thing about Rebels or any of its characters, but I do know pinball, so when Zen sent me a free copy...

I wasn't interested in fighting games as a young teen, so it was exposure to the Super NES versions of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat at a friend's house along with the Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro features on the larger than life characters that finally sparked my interest in the...

Shovel Knight from Yacht Club Games is already an indie darling on Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS, but when the development team decided to bring the game to the Sony PlayStation ecosystem and the Microsoft Xbox domain, both publishers offered up a little extra incentive to persuade returning fans to...

It happens to all of us sooner or later: despite owning one video game, we buy a second copy of that same game for another platform. What is it about some games that spark us to double-dip on them? On this week's episode of Power Button, Blake Grundman defends his multiple purchases of Shovel...

While we lost the planned sequels to 2006's Maverick Hunter X for the Sony PlayStation Portable, we'll always have the original game (and it plays great on the PS Vita, too). In addition to the remixed soundtrack and new playable character, the game also includes a special animated prequel...

This article was originally published at Kombo.com on October 30, 2005. It is republished here as part of Review A Great Game Day. The Dance Dance Revolution arcade and home console games have been around for a while now, but the Nintendo GameCube never quite factored into Konami?s plans for the...

A few days ago I was thinking to myself that with Avengers: Age of Ultron just weeks away from releasing to theaters, it should be about time for us to hear that Zen Studios is working on a tie-in pinball table for its Zen Pinball 2 and Pinball FX2 platforms. Proving again that whatever I think...

Nintendo has found a new gold mine with its popular amiibo figurines featuring both popular characters like Mario and Link and more obscure, deep cut protagonists such as Ness and Lucina. Unfortunately, high demand and limited supply means that lots of amiibo fans are left empty-handed when it...

Everyone suspected that Mewtwo wasn't the only downloadable character for the Super Smash Bros. titles for Wii U and 3DS, but today Nintendo confirmed that by revealing that while Mewtwo is due out for release on April 28, Mother 3's own Lucas is returning from Super Smash Bros. Brawl in June....

Nintendo releases expanded the Virtual Console library at its leisure, so years after announcing that it planned to add Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS classics to the Wii U service, today it was revealed that classics like Super Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island DS are on the way at last. In fact, those...

Club Nintendo is winding down, but the program has one last gift to offer if you achieved Platinum or Gold Elite status for the 2014-15 calendar year. Yesterday was the cutoff date to meet the minimum earned coin requirements (and the final day to earn any coins at all; from here on you can spend...

Things get heated on this week's episode of the Power Button podcast as we discuss Nintendo's recent announcement that it's partnering with mobile publisher DeNA to come to the smartphone and tablet app store near you. Nintendo is also working on its next traditional video game console, codenamed...

Sometimes there's a mistake at PlayStation Store headquarters that causes a popular game to have its price slashed from $[something] to $[nothing]. If you manage to get in on the deal before the mistake is fixed, you can score a Sony PlayStation game for no cost. For some strange reason, this...

Nintendo has found itself in the middle of a fresh controversy following the company's decision to offer pre-release access to the upcoming Wii U shooter Splatoon to Playboy. There's nothing pornographic going on in Playboy's coverage of the game, but that hasn't stopped criticism of the choice...

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Press The Buttons and the fifth anniversary of Power Button, this week's episode of the podcast turns the spotlight on PTB itself as Blake Grundman asks me everything you've ever wanted to know about how this site came to be, how its grown over the years,...

Our week of tenth anniversary giveaways comes to an end with the newly released Battlefield Hardline courtesy of Electronic Arts! I have a copy of the game for both the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Microsoft Xbox One to hand out, so hit the social media widget below to get your entries in the...

Day Three of the big PTB tenth anniversary giveaway brings us ten copies of NBA Live 15 courtesy of Electronic Arts that all need good homes. Five copies are for the Sony PlayStation 4 and five are for the Microsoft Xbox One, so be sure to enter the contest using the appropriate social media...

The tenth anniversary giveaway continues! Today's prizes come to us from MonkeyPaw Games who have generously given me four of their classic Sony PlayStation games for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita to offer up in celebration. Enter for a chance to win Tomba, Wolf Fang, The Firemen 2, and Galaxy...

Press The Buttons is ten years old today! To celebrate I've assembled a pool of gaming-related prizes to give away through the end of the week! Today's prize is a "Link for President" t-shirt courtesy of Merchbro.com. Anyone can enter, but only three will win. Available sizes are XS through XL...

Nintendo announced a partnership with Japanese mobile platform DeNA this morning, signaling an intent to bring its popular franchises and talents into the smartphone/tablet space. Here's Mike Futter at Game Informer to explain: The games that DeNA will be working on are completely new, rather...

Step right up! Press The Buttons celebrates its tenth anniversary on Tuesday, March 17, so to celebrate I'm giving away video games and t-shirts through the end of the week thanks to the kindness of some of the site's PR friends. We'll kick things off tomorrow and entering will be as easy as...

John Oliver has been exposing the seedy underbelly of large organizations for a while now on HBO's Last Week Tonight, and now this week just in time for March Madness basketball he's turned his attention to the NCAA's exploitive treatment of college athletes. What especially caught my attention...

The classic LucasArts adventure game Maniac Mansion arrived on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987 courtesy of Jaleco and quickly became a memorable experience for many NES fans. One of the memorable elements of Maniac Mansion involves the publishing house Three Guys Who Publish Anything...

The Flemish-Dutch Culturehouse De Brakke Ground will organize a month of play-related cultural events, starting April 16. Part of this event is the two day mini-festival Hack/Play on meaningful play. The second night...

For the Platform voor Klantgericht Ondernemen (customer focused entrepreneurship), I will give a brief talk on gamification as part of the “Mastersessie Gamification: How to make it happen“. The talk will cover the...

Yesterday, Sunday the 22nd, I was a guest at Radio Swammerdam at AmsterdamFM for an hourlong conversation about game research, game studies and the current crisis at Dutch universities. I was joined by...

Last weeks I did three interviews on games. First, an interview for NRCq, NRC’s new business focused online platform. The article gives a primer on public game companies, particularly Zynga and King. I’ve...

Earlier this month I was interviewed by biggest Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on the serious segment of the Dutch game industry. The article is called ?Groeiversnelling ?serious games?? and was published on January...

For the University of Amsterdam Humanities’ faculty newsletter I was asked to reread an academic book that has been a “revelation” (openbaring) to me. I chose Stephen Kline et al.’s Digital Play: The...

Below are the two most recent articles for NRC Handelsblad. The first is on the megamilliondollar game Destiny and draws on my PhD research on blockbuster economics. The second article is more contemporary...

The last month I did two brief newspaper interviews on games. The article for De Telegraaf is titled “‘Extremistische game is digitale cartoon'” (Extremist game is digital cartoon) is based on the observation...

Games like Call of Duty and America?s Army demonstrate how the game industry and (American) military institutions are deeply intertwined on both a technological and economical level. At TU Eindhoven?s Studium Generale I...

Together with partner-in-gamejournalism-crime Niels ‘t Hooft I interviewed Arjan Brussee last March in San Francisco. It was a beautiful day during the Game Developers Conference and talking to Arjan has been a dream...

At MIT’s annual platform strategy event I will host a panel titled “Winning! Platform Strategies in the Digital Games Industry” on platform strategies in the game industry. With me are panelists Joost Rietveld...

The fine folks from WNL asked me to offer some commentary on the recent rumors concerning Google’s interest in the increasingly popular streaming platform Twitch.tv. I happen to be in the epicenter of...

Below are the three most recent NRC articles from February, March and April discussing topical issues such as Amazon’s plans for developing and distributing games, King’s IPO, and the pro’s and con’s of...

Out of Home (outdoor advertising) expert Kinetic will hold their annual ?Interactivity event?. Speakers include Layar?s Raimo van der Klein, Harry Glotzbach and yours truly. I will talk about gamification, alternate reality games and...

This spring I did a series of keynotes on social media and politics in Amsterdam for local politicians and education professionals. A result of those engagements is the new book “Sociale gemeenten, de...

After publishing a chapter for the Maven Publishing on winning, I contributed to a new book series called ?Netherlands in ideas? (Nederland in ideeën), also known by its tagline ?Inspirerende, controversiële en vermakelijke...

A year ago I posted here about the relaunch of SpeelJeToekomst.nu (PlayYourFuture.now). The website is a free educational tool by Aegon that teaches (Dutch) users about their financial future and pension in a...

For inGovernment’s september issue I wrote an editorial about data-driven campaigning. InGovernment is an ICT & government focused Dutch outlet, you can get a free subscription here. My article discusses the use of...

They don’t call themselves “player realtors”, but that is essentially what they do. Companies like Chartboost are in the business of moving mobile game players around. Via advertising technology in mobile games, e.g....

Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week's first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying "I'm not a debater." The combative real estate mogul will take center stage at Thursday's...

NEW YORK (AP) ? President Barack Obama will impose even steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday, in what the president called the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to fight global warming.

(Reuters) - A manhunt was underway Sunday in Tennessee for the killer of a Memphis police officer who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Saturday night, officials said. Sean Bolton, 33, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being discovered critically wounded at about 9:15 p.m. local...

CAIRO (AP) ? The United States and Egypt on Sunday resumed formal security talks that were last held six years ago and kept on hiatus until now amid the political unrest that swept the country in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Since Indiana opened its first state-run needle exchange last spring, Tara Burton, 25, has made weekly visits to turn over needles she used to shoot Opana, a prescription painkiller, up her track-marked arm. The one-story clinic in rural Scott County, Indiana, marks a sea change in states where...

Nine people were struck by gunfire and four others suffered cuts and scrapes in the early morning shooting, according to the New York Police Department. All of the gunshot victims, which included both men and women ranging in age from 19 to 38-years-old, were transported to local hospitals and...

President Barack Obama will impose even steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday, in what the president called ...

MIAMI (AP) ? In his first Spanish-language television network interview since launching his 2016 presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush fielded questions ranging from the upcoming presidential debate to Latin American foreign policy to whether he had ever experienced...

Experts have predicted a long and volatile summer wildfire season in California in its fourth year of crippling drought. Firefighter David Ruhl, 38, a married father of two from Rapid City, South Dakota, died on Thursday while on assignment at the Frog Fire in the Modoc National Forest near...

The north end of the Lindbergh terminal was evacuated at about 1:20 p.m. and the roadway shut down while a bomb squad from the Bloomington, Minnesota police department investigated, airport spokeswoman Melissa Scovronski said. "One of our officers decided to swab it and it came back positive for...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) ? Zimbabwe has suspended the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in an area where a lion popular with tourists was killed, and is investigating the killing of another lion in April that may have been illegal, the country's wildlife authority said Saturday.

Sandra Bland was pulled over in her car on July 10 by a white state trooper, Brian Encinia, for failing to signal a lane change. A prosecutor in Waller County, which is northwest of Houston and where the arrest and death happened, said on July 23 that an autopsy supported the medical examiner's...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? The World Health Organization has asked the IOC to analyze virus levels in Rio de Janeiro's Olympic waters, and the governing body of world sailing says it will start doing its own independent virus tests.

By Rich McKay ALPHARETTA, Ga., (Reuters) - Dozens of onlookers gathered on Saturday near a Georgia church for the funeral of Bobbi Kristina Brown, the 22-year-old daughter of late singer Whitney Houston, who died this week, months after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub. Brown's funeral at...

A piece of Boeing 777 wreckage washed up on an Indian Ocean island and suspected to belong to missing flight MH370 arrived Saturday at a French laboratory for analysis. If confirmed as being from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight, the discovery would mark the first breakthrough in a case that...

Organizers of the so-called "America's Journey for Justice" want to build momentum behind a renewed national dialogue over race relations that was prompted by the killing of a number of unarmed black men by police officers over the past year. Organizers, led by the National Association for the...

Jerome Kohlberg Jr., a founder of investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and a pioneer of the leveraged buyout, died on Thursday at his home in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, aged 90. Kohlberg's death was confirmed by his former partners at KKR on Saturday. Kohlberg began working at...

BALMA, France (AP) ? Representatives of the world's media gathered Saturday outside a French defense site in Balma in southwestern France, awaiting the arrival of a piece of plane wing that could be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The killing of Cecil the lion by a U.S. hunter in Zimbabwe has turned up the pressure on Washington to extend legal protection to the African lion by declaring it an endangered species, but some hunting advocates said that would lead to more regulations that could ultimately harm the big cats....

DALLAS (AP) ? The Texas trooper who arrested Sandra Bland after a confrontation that began with a traffic stop was once cautioned about "unprofessional conduct" in a 2014 incident while he was still a probationary trooper, according to his personnel file.

A Mexican judge temporarily suspended a U.S. extradition order on Friday for the fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even though the federal attorney general's office had approved it a day earlier. Guzman, one of the world's most notorious drug traffickers, broke out of a maximum...

After hundreds of rescue workers fanned out across a massive swath of the Atlantic for a full week, the Coast Guard's search for two teenage fishermen ended Friday, a heart-rending decision for families so convinced the boys could be alive they're pressing on with their own hunt.

By Mica Rosenberg, Ryan McNeill, Megan Twohey and Michelle Conlin NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump is staking his run for U.S. president in part on a vow to protect American jobs. Trump owns companies that have sought to import at least 1,100 foreign workers on temporary visas since 2000,...

Hillary Clinton is in "excellent physical condition and fit to serve as president," her physician declared Friday ? just one in a flood of disclosures about the Democratic presidential candidate pushed out by her campaign on a busy summer day.

For all that was shocking about a university police officer shooting a man at point blank range during a routine traffic stop near the University of Cincinnati campus this month, one thing was not. It is just one of the many powers held by the majority of campus police forces that have become a...

One week before Jeb Bush jumps into the Republican free-for-all primary on a debate stage with nine other candidates, he faced off with the likely Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, as the two of them gave dueling speeches to the National Urban League.

By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A federal magistrate on Friday entered a "temporary" not guilty plea for Dylann Roof on hate crime charges in the slaying of nine African-Americans at a South Carolina church, even as his lawyer said his client wanted to plead guilty. The lead...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? The white man accused of gunning down nine parishioners at a black church in Charleston wants to plead guilty to 33 federal charges, but his lawyer said in court Friday that he wouldn't do so until prosecutors say whether they'll see the death penalty.

Ray Tensing, 25, a former University of Cincinnati police officer, has been charged with murder in the shooting death of Samuel DuBose, who had been stopped for a missing license plate. The two other University of Cincinnati officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, were placed on...

The U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report Friday, saying the Family Court of St. Louis County discriminates routinely against black children in a variety of ways. The court has failed to ensure the youth have adequate legal representation, failed to make sure there is probable cause...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Throughout more than 120 years of Olympic history, no city has hosted both the winter and summer games. Now, Beijing will be the first do it ? and in the span of just 14 years.

By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. troops deployed in battle zones is at its lowest level since before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The contradiction is the legacy of an emergency war fund, started in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that has become a favorite...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Beijing was selected Friday to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, defeating the bid from Almaty in a surprisingly close vote to become the first city awarded both the winter and summer games.